News in the Channel - issue #38

AI PCS

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been the most talked about technology of recent years, and it is now justifying the hype by providing real-world benefits to businesses, and, increasingly, this is through performance gains from AI PCs. Anjana Srinivasan, EMEA commercial chief at AMD, says demand is strong and accelerating across EMEA, particularly in the commercial segment. “Customers are no longer just curious about AI PCs,” she adds. “They are actively evaluating how AI can deliver real productivity gains, improve collaboration and support a more modern way of working through on- device AI. “Many organisations are timing adoption alongside planned refresh cycles, but the conversation has shifted meaningfully. Customers are now asking what AI PC capabilities mean for their actual workflows, how quickly they can deploy at scale, and how to ensure they are making the right long-term platform choice. This marks a move from early interest to practical intent.” Simone Larsson, head of enterprise AI, EMEA at Lenovo, says that AI is dominating customer conversations, but on the PC side adoption is still in its early stages. “Many organisations are currently in an evaluation phase, assessing how AI PCs can enhance productivity,” she says. “While AI is not yet the primary driver of refresh cycles, it is increasingly shaping procurement discussions. We are seeing momentum building as customers move from curiosity to practical deployment discussions. The Windows 11 migration and broader refresh activity created a natural opportunity for businesses to future-proof their fleets with AI-ready devices. We are focused on supporting partners in shifting these discussions from hardware upgrades to broader hybrid AI strategies that align devices, infrastructure and services.” Mike Barron, UK managing director at SYNAXON, agrees that demand for

AI PCs is growing. “This is driven by the growing realisation that they really do offer performance advantages for individual users and businesses,” he adds. “Concerns over the possibility of shortages and price rises are also having an impact and encouraging people to bring forward upgrades.” Latest innovations The technology in AI PCs is developing quickly, but innovations are bringing more advantages to users. Simone says the latest AI PCs are powered by integrated Neural Processing Units (NPUs) and hybrid AI architectures that combine on-device intelligence with cloud capabilities. “This enables more personalised and proactive computing experiences,” she explains. “Devices can now adapt to individual working styles, automate repetitive tasks and enhance collaboration through real-time workflow support. More processing can happen directly on the device, improving responsiveness while supporting data sovereignty and governance requirements. We are also seeing the rise of ambient intelligence, where AI works seamlessly across multiple devices, allowing workflows to move fluidly between PCs, smartphones and other endpoints.” Anjana adds that the most important innovation on the hardware side is dedicated on-device AI acceleration through the NPU, working alongside the CPU and graphics. “This enables genuinely useful experiences, such as real-time captions and translation, smart search and organisation and AI-assisted content creation, all while keeping the system fast and responsive,” she explains. Anjana adds that there are also efficiency benefits. “By running AI workloads on the NPU, systems can reduce pressure on the CPU and GPU, which is designed to support better power efficiency, improved battery life and stronger mobility,” she says.

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Customers are no longer just curious about AI PCs... They are actively evaluating how AI can deliver real productivity gains, improve collaboration, and support a more modern way of working through on- device AI.

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