Dell is clear that its products will no longer be “AI first” in 2026. The absolute focus on the promise of gold and silver in the new generation of PCs thanks to the virtues of artificial intelligence is disappearing, and the reason is obvious: almost no one cares whether their PC has AI features or not.
what happened. Kevin Terwilliger, Dell’s chief product officer, noted in a recent interview with PC Gamer that the AI fever in PCs ended up causing a lot of frustration among users. “In fact,” he explains, “I think AI probably confuses them more than it helps them achieve a certain outcome.”
Dell doesn’t believe (so much) in AI PCs anymore. This manager was surprisingly honest when he said that this absolute commitment to AI didn’t convince either the users or the company. The company has taken a step back, and while they will continue to pay attention to these AI options, they will no longer be a priority because they’ve found that people don’t care too much about these options:
“We’re very focused on leveraging the AI capabilities of the device — in fact, every product we announce includes an NPU — but what we’ve learned this year, especially from a consumer perspective, is that they don’t buy based on AI.”
Although the monkey dresses in silk, the monkey remains. This is well known to our beloved PC, which over the past two years has wanted to transform itself from a personal computer into a personal companion with the help of artificial intelligence, of course. All manufacturers started boasting about TOPS in powerful NPUs and that instead of using a computer with a mouse and keyboard, we will use our voice. The promise is broken and what has happened to the computer is that everyone continues to use it the same way they used to. At least for now.
Dell lowers the rate. Dell was one of Microsoft’s first partners in launching Copilot+ PCs in 2024, and even added variants of its popular Dell XPS 13 and Inspirons with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip. Last year, they even added Cloud AI chips from this manufacturer to their high-end chips to try to boost the performance of the local AI models, but it didn’t convince users. That manufacturers like Dell are changing the discourse is both important and dangerous for Microsoft’s ambitious plans.
Microsoft is left alone. The Satya Nadella-led company has been bombarding us with new AI features in Windows for a long time now, but the problem is that most of these features have been met with indifference… or outright rejection. The example of Windows Recall is the most striking: the feature seemed promising, but its launch was embroiled in huge privacy controversies, and its availability was delayed, and it is now hardly talked about.
Thank you for your honesty, Dell. Dell’s performance is surprising and highly appreciated. Especially after that continuous stream of releases in which artificial intelligence seemed to be the salvation of the PC and the key to a new golden age. Without a doubt, these features can prove valuable, but what users continue to look for in their laptops, for example, is reliability and great battery life. That’s what else matters.
The PC has a challenging future ahead of it. Jeff Clarke, Dell’s chief operating officer, participated in a media briefing at CES 2026 and also mentioned that in this field, “we have the unfulfilled promise of artificial intelligence and the expectation that artificial intelligence will drive end-user demand.” Dell obviously has a different vision now, but both it and other manufacturers face a very difficult few months because, as Clark said, “we’re going into 2026 with a pretty significant memory deficit.”
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