I’m tired of everything being “AI.” AI smartphones, AI fridges, AI tablets, AI vacuum cleaners, and most of all, AI PCs. I’ve seen enough of those to last me a lifetime.
Recently, Dell itself has admitted that consumers don’t really care about AI PCs, and this 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’d say about zero.
Credit: Cianna Garrison / How-To Geek
Ever since the worst of the AI boom started a few years ago, all major computing events and announcements have been focused on just that: AI.
AI PC. AI companion. AI assistant. AI everything.
At first, it was a novelty. I, too, was thrilled to see the initial capabilities of 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 settling down, all companies that had anything to do with AI ended up doubling down on it instead. Every year at CES, we are bombarded with new AI PCs. The truth is, many people yawn rather than follow those releases with excitement at this point, but the AI PC is inescapable. And while the best of CES 2026 brought us many fun innovations, AI was still a constant in every keynote.
One brand seems to be turning things around, though: Dell.
Kevin Terwilliger, head of product 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 a while, but there’s more to AI fatigue than just the baseline of wanting to stop hearing about it. It’s also that those new PCs don’t always offer an enticing enough upgrade for people to be excited about them being so “AI.”
What “AI PC” really means in 2026
Who even knows?
Credit: HP
AI has become such a buzzword that it’s hard to define what it truly covers. When most new tech gets access to an AI companion or some AI features, the true meaning of it becomes so diluted that it’s hard to tell what it really entails. It’s also significantly less thrilling, but that’s another thing entirely.
However, an AI PC is typically an umbrella term for everything that comes with a neural processing unit (NPU). More precisely, these PCs need to meet the requirements for Microsoft’s Copilot+ program, meaning 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.
To most users, both the NPU and the AI TOPS are kind of irrelevant. The average laptop user just wants a PC that does what they need it to do. The 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 place where most recent mainstream laptops have an NPU, and the newest iterations take the number of TOPS beyond the requirements of Copilot+. And having an NPU can be a handy thing even if you don’t make the most of it, but I have yet to see most regular laptop users start shopping for them based on the number of TOPS or whether they have an NPU or not.
What I actually like about AI PCs (and what I don’t care for)
The best perks are often the least impressive.
Credit: Cianna Garrison / How-To Geek
As I was working on this article, I asked a few people I know whether they liked AI PCs. Not one really knew what that even meant. And no, I didn’t ask my 82-year-old uncle just to get that response—those were people who are generally rather plugged in and aware of tech trends.
The failure to properly explain the benefits of AI PCs vs. non-AI PCs is real, but there are some benefits of owning a laptop with an NPU.
First: inference: the moment an AI model actually does the work (like transcribing audio or generating an image). NPUs are built to run those kinds of tasks efficiently, often using less power than leaning on the CPU or GPU for the same job. But, again, many people don’t know what inference is, which is why branding every consumer laptop as an “AI PC” is a puzzling decision.
But the NPU can help with day-to-day tasks too, and its main benefit is that it’s efficient in handling the features it’s meant to take care of. The way the NPU helps you handle the entire Windows/Copilot+ stack is good, it’s just not good enough to be the only selling point for some of these laptops.
Two major wins of AI PCs include improved calls (AI webcam framing, background blur, and noise cleanup), and accessibility, such as live captions, transcription, and translation. I personally also enjoy AI note-taking.
Who really needs an AI PC
You probably don’t need me to tell you.
Credit: Cianna Garrison / How-To Geek
I could just say that most people who truly need an NPU (and thus an AI PC) are already aware of it. Specialized AI workloads benefit from either a discrete GPU or an NPU, but a GPU is a lot better. Still, there are a few more things to consider.
For starters, if you want good battery life, these PCs are usually efficient no matter what you do (but your mileage may vary, so read specific reviews). Beyond that, if you’re on Windows, some features may be gated behind having an NPU, so there’s that.
If your job keeps you on video calls, you’ll like the noise suppression and camera effects. Translation features are helpful for multilingual households or frequent travelers. And if you’re particularly privacy-conscious, you may benefit from an AI PC for local inference. Content creators who rely on AI tools might be able to replace their SaaS subscriptions with a local alternative, too.
Most importantly, if you’re buying a laptop right now, it’ll probably be an AI PC whether you care about it or not.
We’ve grown desensitized to AI, making all these new developments much less impressive. Each generation of AI PCs is better than the previous one, but I’m tired of that being the main headline from every major computing show. I wouldn’t mind a shift toward tangible improvements instead of buzzwords most people no longer care about.
