AI PCs will dominate shipments by 2026, but not because of demand

Buying computers without the tech to get harder as chipmakers compete for cash, say analysts

AI PCs are forecast to account for 43 percent of PCs by 2025, says tech market sales number cruncher and consultancy Gartner, and by 2026, an AI device may be the virtually the only laptop a big business can choose.

Shipments of AI PCs are estimated to be 43 million units in 2024, an increase of 99.8 percent from 2023 and 114 million units in 2025, a 165.5 percent increase over the previous year.

While PC vendors looking for good news might welcome this figure, it does not represent the emergence of a killer AI app. Instead, it is an indicator that buying a PC without AI silicon will become increasingly difficult.

For Gartner, an AI PC is one with an embedded neural processing unit (NPU). Although there might not be much on the desktop that demands the hardware, it is, according to analyst, going to become more ubiquitous to the point where a buyer might hedge their bets and buy a bit of future-proofing. That killer app may not be here now, but could be around the corner.

Ranjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner, compared the transition to AI PC hardware to the move to Wi-Fi for hardware vendors during a discussion with The Register. "Essentially," he said, "it becomes a lack of choice. That's what drives the share.

"The bigger question is: can vendors monetize those AI PCs?"

At the recent Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference, HP CEO Enrique Lores told analysts that he expects AI PCs to represent approximately 50 percent of shipments in 2027 and drive an average selling price increase across the sector of between 5 and 10 percent.

Jitesh Ubrani, research manager, Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers at IDC, said this week: "Businesses certainly recognize the importance of AI though many struggle to see the immediate use case and instead are opting for AI PCs as a means to futureproofing."

According to analysts at IDC: "The long term trend undoubtedly points towards an onslaught of AI PCs as the inclusion of an NPU propagates down to lower-tier PCs and supply eventually finds itself in a position where producing processors without an NPU becomes cost prohibitive."

The eventual dominance of the AI PC appears inevitable, even if the hardware currently surpasses the software applications, yet it is coming at a terrible time for some vendors. Atwal noted that for Intel, "it's almost the worst time for it to happen."

"Microsoft and Qualcomm are pushing an alternative platform ... it's probably the first time that Arm is competitive," he told us.

"It's just a much more competitive environment than I've ever seen previously. There are many more opportunities for the different CPU vendors than we've seen historically." ®