Microsoft wants you to believe the data-analytics-id=”inline-link” href=”https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/what-is-an-ai-pc” data-mrf-recirculation=”inline-link” data-before-rewrite-localise=”https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/what-is-an-ai-pc”>“AI PC” is the future. data-analytics-id=”inline-link” href=”https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows/copilot-plus-pc-faq” data-mrf-recirculation=”inline-link” data-before-rewrite-localise=”https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows/copilot-plus-pc-faq”>Copilot+ laptops, neural processing units ( data-analytics-id=”inline-link” href=”https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/what-is-npu-vs-gpu” data-mrf-recirculation=”inline-link” data-before-rewrite-localise=”https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/what-is-npu-vs-gpu”>NPUs), and promises of local data-analytics-id=”inline-link” href=”https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence” data-auto-tag-linker=”true” data-mrf-recirculation=”inline-link” data-before-rewrite-redirect=”https://www.windowscentral.com/tag/artificial-intelligence” data-before-rewrite-localise=”https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence”>AI magic are being pitched as the next great leap in personal computing.
But as we settle into 2026, I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve been here before—and that the hype may be running ahead of reality. Heck, even Dell made some news recently, noting the whole data-analytics-id=”inline-link” href=”https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/dell-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-consumers-dont-actually-care-about-ai-pcs-ai-probably-confuses-them-more-than-it-helps-them” data-mrf-recirculation=”inline-link” data-before-rewrite-localise=”https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/dell-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-consumers-dont-actually-care-about-ai-pcs-ai-probably-confuses-them-more-than-it-helps-them”>AI PC thing really isn’t working as a pitch to consumers.
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The AI PC promise
On paper, the AI PC sounds…
