Blog Two Reasons to Invest in AI PCs Now (That Aren’t Productivity Focused)

AI PCs enhance productivity. This is the number one story and use case you’ve heard about AI PCs. Let’s take a look at two other reasons you should invest.

Because Insight is a partner to every major OEM currently producing AI PCs, we’ve been fielding a lot of questions about the value of AI PCs as it stands today. What we’ve heard so far is that the AI apps and productivity gains are nice but not exactly compelling enough to make the investment — not only in the devices themselves, but also in the effort it would take to properly adopt their functionality.

After testing AI PCs for more than a year, we’re here to tell you that there are two solid reasons to adopt AI PCs today.

Reason one to invest in an AI PC

The first reason? Security, security, security. Remember the SolarWinds cyberattack a few years ago? It exploited vulnerabilities between PC security processors (the chip that stores credentials, encryption keys, secrets, etc.) and CPUs, injecting malicious code into software updates. Its result was a supply chain attack that compromised thousands of organizations.

That is exactly the kind of attack that the new security chips, called Pluton Security processors, were designed to mitigate. These processors solve this problem in three ways:

1. Unlike TPM that communicates with the CPU, Pluton is integrated with the CPU making physical attacks much more difficult.
2. Pluton is designed to securely store information in a way that is isolated from the rest of the system (even from the main operating system) making it a lot more difficult for hackers to steal.
3. Updates to the firmware are now addressed through a “chip to cloud” model, meaning they come directly from Microsoft to the Pluton chip. If this sounds familiar, it is how MacOS has been able to call their devices “more secure” for years.

Here are a couple of things to know about Pluton:

1. It’s enabled by default for any machine that has it. It can be disabled only on certain models, so do your homework (or ask your favorite Solutions Integrator) if this might be necessary – although it is kind of defeating the purpose of my number one reason to get an AI PC now!
2. While there are select PC models that utilize Pluton without being “AI PCs”, every Copilot+ AI PC has Pluton guaranteed to be built-in.

Reason two to invest in an AI PC

This brings me to my second reason. Yes, you can get Pluton on non-AI PCs, but why would you? You’d be missing out on the second-best reason to invest now: Windows AI Local.

Windows AI Local is shorthand for the suite of technologies built into Windows 11 that enable AI workloads to run directly on a user’s device utilizing the NPU, rather than relying on cloud-based processing. In other words, Windows AI Local is what will enable your organization to develop your own AI solutions that take advantage of the NPU.

The core components of Windows AI Local include:

• Windows ML (Machine Learning): Built into Windows 11, this enables developers to integrate pre-trained machine learning models into their apps that use the NPU.
• Windows AI Foundry: The developer toolkit that provides access to a curated set of open-source AI models and APIs design to use the NPU. Developers can create a range of AI-powered experiences, from text generation and image editing, data analysis, and more.
• Foundry Local: A component of the Windows AI Foundry, this allows for the local execution of LLMs and SLMs (small language models) directly on AI PCs.
• Copilot+ PCs… obviously.

Developing apps that utilize the NPU are highly beneficial for a few reasons:

1. Security (again). For organizations that are skittish about cloud-based LLMs, AI apps run locally and keep your data local. Any organization concerned about privacy now has an alternative.
2. Cost. Have you made the mistake of publishing AI agents or apps without considering compute costs? Locally run AI doesn’t incur cloud compute costs and there are no separate licensing fees for any of the components above.
3. No internet connection required. Think of the world this opens up for hybrid and task-based users.
4. Speed to success (or failure). If you’re currently exploring AI use cases but are stalled out on development and decision-making because of costs, complexity, and resources, take a look at which use cases you can test locally to run a PoC. If your local PoC is successful, you can feel more confident in your investment in a larger, cloud-based initiative.

Would you like to know more about the possibility of AI PCs? Insight works closely with every OEM currently selling AI PCs, and we have the expertise to help you get the most out of your investment. We would love to be your partner on this journey into the world of locally run AI.

Talk to a specialist today to learn more.