As HP’s new Copilot Plus AI PCs reach India, it sets its sights on businesses to break into the market

“There is a lot of interest and many active conversations happening on the enterprise side. The feedback we have received, even from channel partners who are reaching out to our SMB customers, is very positive,” said Vineet Gehani, senior director of Personal Systems at HP India, in an interview with indianexpress.com on the sidelines of the launch of new PCs.

These notebooks are powered by an Arm-based Qualcomm chip capable of running certain AI tasks without an internet connection. They are equipped to run applications such as digital assistants and software that can generate everything from code to videos directly on the device itself, reducing reliance on cloud services.

HP has been targeting new business users, corporates, and small to large enterprises with its new AI PCs featuring chips from Qualcomm, aiming to revive sales and position these modern Windows-powered PCs as competitors to Apple Inc.’s MacBook laptops.

“We are encouraging upgrades and promoting more premium usage. Additionally, we offer exchange and device recovery services to our enterprise customers. If enterprise customers wish to return their old devices and upgrade to new ones, we have solutions tailored for that purpose as well. It’s a combination of these offerings that we are bringing to the market,” Gehani said.

For years, Intel has been a dominant player in the PC market, reigning over the ecosystem. However, with the advent of AI PCs, Intel is now joined by AMD, Apple, Qualcomm, and Nvidia in the battle to integrate their processors into the next wave of artificial intelligence-enabled computers. Qualcomm, despite being a smaller player with a small fraction of PC sales in the Windows market, is challenging a market dominated by Intel and AMD. Their processors are based on Arm designs, providing competition to the x86 architecture. Intel and AMD will also offer advanced AI PCs with powerful on-device AI, boasting higher TOPS AI performance.

AMD recently unveiled new AI processors for AI PCs, which will start shipping in volume at the end of this month in select markets. Intel said it expected its Lunar Lake processor, a top-tier chip powering AI PCs, to ship in the third quarter, in time for the holiday buying season.

Trade pundits expect that only a small share of PCs sold this year will be AI-optimized and based on the Copilot Plus standard for running artificial intelligence models.

Looking ahead, Gehani anticipates a significant increase in the contribution of AI PCs in the next two years, expecting them to account for at least 50% of the market during that period. This growth will be driven by AI PCs not just at the top end but across various price points. “We are working very actively to make it affordable for our end users,” he said.