Even Dell admits that nobody cares about AI PCs
I’m tired of everything being “AI”. AI smartphones, AI refrigerators, AI tablets, AI vacuum cleaners and above all, AI PCs. I’ve seen enough to last a lifetime.
Recently, Dell itself admitted that consumers don’t really care about AI PCs, and that got me thinking: why don’t we care? And more importantly, why should we care?
How many more AI PCs does this world really need?
I would say about zero.
Since the worst of the AI boom began a few years ago, every major IT event and announcement has been focused on just that: AI.
PC AI. AI companion. AI assistant. AI everything.
At first it was a novelty. I too was excited to see the initial capabilities of the GPT and similar models, and it was obvious that once they arrived they were here to stay, so it never occurred to me to fight them. It’s just… did they have to end up being everywhere?
Instead of things eventually getting better, every company that had anything to do with AI ended up doubling down on their investment. Every year at CES, we’re bombarded with new AI PCs. The truth is that many people are yawning rather than enthusiastically following these releases at this point, but the PC AI is unmissable. And while the best of CES 2026 brought us plenty of fun innovations, AI remained a constant in every keynote.
However, one brand seems to be changing the situation: Dell.
Kevin Terwilliger, product manager at Dell, said (via PC Gamer): “What we’ve learned over the course of this year, especially from a consumer perspective, is that they’re not buying based on AI. In fact, I think AI probably confuses them more than it helps them understand a specific outcome. »
It was refreshing to see a company admit what many of us have been thinking for some time, but there’s more to AI fatigue than just wanting to stop hearing about it. It’s also that these new PCs don’t always offer an attractive enough upgrade to get people excited about their “AI”.
What “AI PC” really means in 2026
Who knows?
AI has become such a buzzword that it’s difficult to define what it actually means. When most new technologies have access to an AI companion or some AI functionality, their true meaning becomes so diluted that it’s hard to say what it actually entails. It’s also a lot less exciting, but it’s a whole different thing.
However, an AI PC is generally an umbrella term for anything that comes with a neural processing unit (NPU). More specifically, these PCs must meet the requirements of Microsoft’s Copilot+ program, that is to say an NPU with a minimum of 40 TOPS. But a computer can be called an AI PC without being a Copilot+ PC, so that’s fun.
For most users, NPU and AI TOPS are irrelevant. The average laptop user simply wants a PC that does what they need it to do. NPU is more of a thing where if you need it, you’ll know it, and if you don’t know what it is, then you probably don’t need it right now.
We’re at a point where most newer consumer laptops have an NPU, and the most recent iterations are taking the TOPS count beyond the Copilot+ requirements. And having an NPU can be a handy thing even if you don’t get the most out of it, but I have yet to see most regular laptop users start buying them based on TOPS count or whether or not they have an NPU.
What I Really Like About AI PCs (And What I Don’t)
The best benefits are often the least impressive.
While I was working on this article, I asked a few people I know if they liked AI PCs. No one really knew what that meant. And no, I didn’t ask my 82-year-old uncle just to get that answer: they were generally pretty hip people and aware of technological trends.
The inability to properly explain the benefits of AI PCs over non-AI PCs is real, but there are some benefits to owning a laptop with an NPU.
First: inference: when an AI model actually does the work (like transcribing audio or generating an image). NPUs are designed to efficiently perform these types of tasks, often using less power than relying on the CPU or GPU for the same work. But, again, many people don’t know what inference is, which is why calling every consumer laptop an “AI PC” is a confusing move.
But the NPU can also help with everyday tasks, and its main advantage is that it is efficient in handling the functionality it is supposed to take care of. The way the NPU helps you manage the entire Windows/Copilot+ stack is good, but it’s just not good enough to be the sole selling point of some of these laptops.
Two major benefits of AI PCs include improved calling (AI webcam framing, background blur, and noise cleaning) and accessibility, such as live captions, transcription, and translation. Personally, I also appreciate the AI note-taking.
Who really needs an AI PC
You probably don’t need me to tell you.
I could just say that most people who really need an NPU (and therefore an AI PC) are already aware of this. Specialized AI workloads benefit from either a discrete GPU or an NPU, but a GPU is much better. There are, however, a few other things to consider.
For starters, if you want good battery life, these PCs are generally good no matter what you do (but your mileage may vary, so read the specific reviews). Beyond that, if you’re on Windows, some features may be tied to an NPU, so there’s that.
If your job requires you to make video calls, you’ll appreciate the noise cancellation and camera effects. Translation features are useful for multilingual households or frequent travelers. And if you’re particularly concerned about your privacy, you can benefit from an AI PC for local inference. Content creators who rely on AI tools might also be able to replace their SaaS subscriptions with a local alternative.
More importantly, if you buy a laptop right now, it’s probably going to be an AI PC, whether you care about that or not.
We have become desensitized to AI, which makes all these new developments much less impressive. Every generation of PC AI is better than the last, but I’m tired of this being the main headline at every major computer show. I wouldn’t mind moving on to tangible improvements rather than buzzwords that most people no longer care about.
