It seems that average users are left cold by AI-based solutions.
Back in May, Microsoft announced the first Copilot+ PCs with great fanfare, and then several manufacturers presented their own solutions, but for the time being the AI functions intended to sell them are more smoke than fire, they are of little practical use, so they are not it’s surprising that users don’t rush to stores just to get a laptop like this.
According to a recent report, in the third quarter of 2024, the proportion of PCs rated Copilot+ did not even make up 10 percent of the turnover, although Qualcomm predicted that within five years, machines equipped with the Snapdragon X SoC will account for half of the PC market.
Analysts add that although the number of PCs with NPUs is increasing every quarter, users typically buy them because they need a new machine and are not attracted by the AI features intended to attract customers. However, according to Dean McCarron, president of market research at Mercury Research, “this figure has a high degree of uncertainty because the products are early in their life cycle and the research is subject to sampling error.”
If we take into account all mobile CPUs, including solutions from Intel and AMD, the proportion of processors with NPU cores rises to 36 percent. However, their NPU performance does not reach the level required by Copilot.
Canalys did not paint a much rosier picture of the situation of Copilot+ PCs either. It is true that the number of AI-enabled PCs sold in the third quarter increased to 13.3 million, covering 53 percent of the market, but almost a third of resellers, 31 percent, do not plan to sell Copilot+ PCs next year at all, 34 and a percentage of them are sure that the category will not even account for 10 percent of their total sales in 2025.
Of course, the upcoming end of support for Windows 10 may still drive people towards Copilot+ PCs, which would certainly be easier to convince of the correctness of the purchase if they could get really useful AI functions for their money. It’s up to the people of Redmond to take advantage of the technology’s potential.
Source: www.pcwplus.hu
