Enterprises plan to back their talk of adopting artificial intelligence (AI) with their wallets.
A whopping 62% of AI PC adoption in the enterprise is being influenced by IT departments’ laser focus on “future-proofing” their organizations’ push into AI, according to a Futurum Group’s survey of 852 enterprise IT decision-makers this year.
The sense of urgency is palpable among decision makers beyond laying the groundwork for AI. Some 55% highlighted the need to make their workforce more competitive as quickly as possible; nearly half (48%) identified the impending end to Windows 10 support as a critical priority; and one-third pointed out the necessity for improvement in system performance.
The results, released Friday, not only illustrate the increasing importance of AI for competitive reasons but the essential role AI PCs are expected to play in the expanding ecosystem of AI tools and solutions. What is more, it illuminates the impact the introduction of AI PCs is already having on the personal computer refresh cycle as well as the shifting competitive dynamics of the PC semiconductor vendor ecosystem, according to the report.
“Articulating the value of AI PCs to organizations of all sizes is still a work in progress,” said Olivier Blanchard, research director and practice lead for AI Devices at The Futurum Group. “Beyond the obvious system improvements they offer over traditional PCs, like all-day and multi-day battery life, Apple-like thermal efficiency, and noticeably faster, more efficient processors, the AI piece of the value equation remains mostly absent from the AI PC space for now.”
Uncertainty lingers around AI, however. More than a third (36%) said they are concerned with the higher unit price of AI PCs, and 28% point to additional AI-related costs such as subscriptions to AI feature-enabling services. Some 28% of organizations cited concern over the ability of AI PCs to run critical enterprise software natively, and 25% are generally worried AI PCs may not yet be enterprise ready.
For now, the transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11 is driving IT organizations to accelerate their refresh cycle this year, which “bodes well for AI PCs, and particularly Copilot+ class AI PCs, all of which so happen to be Windows 11 systems,” Blanchard said. [The end of Windows 10 support is scheduled for fall 2025.]
The new operating system is expected to boost the adoption of next-generation PCs for optimization of AI apps. Market researcher Gartner forecasts AI PCs will comprise 43% of PC shipments in 2025, up from 17% in 2024. Meanwhile, a Wedbush Securities analysis found AI spending will jump to 10% to 15% of many IT budgets in 2025 as chief information officers ramp up projects.
According to an S&P Global Ratings report issued Wednesday, AI applications may need to be tailor-made and carefully tested and monitored for enterprise customers, leading to higher costs. “However, we expect as best practices develop and become industry standards, the proper use of AI-generated content will become less of an obstacle for AI PC adoption in the workplace. On the contrary, retail consumers have been faster to embrace new AI features and adoption of AI PCs,” Cathy Lai, the report’s primary author, wrote.
While two in three enterprises showed a strong preference for Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc.’s successful entry into the PC space with Snapdragon X and the overall disruption of the PC segment by AI PCs are reshaping market share dynamics for PC processor vendors, The Futurum Group found.
About 56% of IT departments indicated their first choice for AI PC processors is Intel, followed by AMD Inc. (19%), Qualcomm (15%), and Apple (11%).
“The biggest winner of this market share reshuffle is obviously Qualcomm right now, but Windows-on-Arm is going to need to deliver some significant advantages against x86 systems in order to solidify those potential market share gains, let alone expand them in the coming years,” Blanchard said. “Intel and AMD’s processors are already extremely competitive against Snapdragon, and given x86’s known quantity advantage in the enterprise segment, we could see Intel and AMD regain some momentum in the coming months.”
