After making its presence felt in smartphones, different virtual online assistants, unnecessary home appliances, and our favorite applications, artificial intelligence was about time it made its way into computers. Hence, there is a need for the emergence of AI computers.
You might be wondering, aren’t we already using AI on our computers? Didn’t I just use ChatGPT on my laptop the other day?
Well, you did. However, using AI tools through a web browser on your computer is not the same as using native AI programs on the computer.
With most AI tools that we use these days — ChatGPT, Google Gemini, DALL-E, Midjourney, etc.- the bulk of the processing, if not all, is done on the company’s server, leaving very little to do on the user’s part. That is why it takes these tools a few seconds to minutes to answer a request.
As it turns out, the requests a user makes for these tools need to go to the company server first, from where the AI model computes the output. Then, the produced output is sent back to the user device, which signifies two major problems in third-party AI tools – latency and vulnerability. Since the request has to go to the remote server, there is a wait period for the user to get their answer. More importantly, as the information is passed to a remote location, how the information is handled is usually a mystery to the users.
To address the latency and confidentiality of the information, AI models need to be able to compute on-device, native to the user system. However, the rate at which artificial intelligence is advancing is exponential, and it is getting harder for personal computers to accommodate such large language models. This is where AI PCs come in, the most popular of which is the new Copilot+PC series.
Copliot+PC, introduced by Microsoft and adopted by ASUS, HP, Dell, and practically every major PC manufacturer, is a new generation of computers built specifically to run AI models natively and offer AI-powered features for everyday computer use.
This has been made possible because of the neural processing unit or NPU built into these laptops. In layman’s terms, NPU is similar to the CPU or central processing units but unlike a CPU, NPUs only process AI-related tasks so that the additional workload of running the AI model doesn’t burden the CPU or GPU.
Surface and Surface Pro, Microsoft’s first devices from the Copilot+PC series, are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chips that feature a Qualcomm AI engine to handle AI-related processing. Other manufacturers are also using Qualcomm’s Elite series chip to take advantage of the dedicated NPU that comes with the AI engine.
Along with doing regular PC tasks faster, these AI PCs offer several AI-powered features that might seem impossible in a traditional work setup.
One such AI feature of Copilot+PCs would be Recall. This basically allows users to see their actions on the computer as if they were watching a recorded video. You can go back and watch what actions you performed at a specific time. It’s like going back in time and watching yourself do the work.
Another useful feature of this AI integration is the advanced search capabilities of Copilot+PCs. These next-gen AI PCs feature an algorithmic search functionality that allows you to search from all that you’ve written, clicked, browsed, saved, or even generated.
Due to the quick NPU and overall faster performance, artificial intelligence in these laptops can generate captions in 40 different languages, that too in real-time. Also, like Apple’s Center Stage, the neural processing of these AI PCs allows the laptop camera to always focus on you and bring you to the center in a video conference.
Besides these new AI-powered features, Copilot+PCs will have all the AI tools that you use with a subscription.
Want AI to write your email?
It’ll do that.
Looking for a specific image?
It will create the picture from the text prompt you send.
Need help with editing videos, photos, or even audio?
Copilot+PC got you covered.
Basically, anything you can do on a cloud-based AI tool can be done faster and more securely on your PC without a recurring subscription to tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Midjourney, etc.
For an AI enthusiast, a creative person, or an early adopter of new tech, this new lineup of AI-integrated computers is a milestone in personal computing. But to everyone else, these new AI PCs, especially the Copilot+PCs, are not something you need to upgrade to just now.
Most of the things it does, you can get done, albeit with some sort of subscription, with cloud-based tools that we have been used to in the last couple of years. The recall and advanced search, although very handy, are not worth upgrading your PC. So, if your personal computing needs are limited to day-to-day tasks and basic office work or just pure entertainment, you are better off waiting for what the future generations of this series hold.
As of right now, Copilot+PC is more of a novelty product that mainly uses artificial intelligence to accelerate on-device or cloud-based tasks. Although the first generation of this lineup does not prompt an immediate upgrade from your traditional computers, this certainly marks its path to a future where a modern-day traditional computer without a dedicated NPU for AI-related tasks would feel obsolete.
Author: Rifat Ahmed
