Dell is clear that its products in 2026 will no longer be “AI-first.” That absolute focus on promising the gold and the moro in the new generation of PCs thanks to the virtues of artificial intelligence is disappearing and the reason is obvious: almost no one cares if their PC has AI functions or not.
what has happened. Kevin Terwilliger, chief product officer at Dell, said in a recent interview with PC Gamer that the AI fever on PCs has ended up causing a lot of disappointment among users. “In fact,” he explains, “I think the AI probably confuses them more than it helps them achieve a specific result.”
Dell no longer believes (as much) in PCs with AI. This manager showed surprising honesty when talking about how this absolute commitment to AI has not convinced either users or companies. The company has taken a step back, and although they will continue to pay attention to these AI options, they will no longer be the priority because they have discovered that people don’t care too much about those options:
“We’re very focused on leveraging the AI capabilities of a device – in fact, every product we announce has an NPU – but what we’ve learned over the course of this year, especially from a consumer perspective, is that they don’t buy based on AI.”
Although the monkey dresses in silk, the monkey stays. Our dear PC knows it well, that in the last two years wanted go from being a Personal Computer to a Personal Companion with the help, of course, of AI. All manufacturers started to brag about TOPS on powerful NPUs and how instead of using our computer with a mouse and keyboard we were going to use the voice. The promise has dissipated and what has happened to the PC is that everyone keep using it the same way you used it. At least, for now.
Dell lowers the bet. Dell was one of Microsoft’s initial partners in the launch of Copilot+ PCs in 2024, and even added variants of its popular Dell XPS 13 and Inspiron with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chip. They even added Cloud AI chips of this manufacturer in its high-end chips last year to try to reinforce the execution of local AI models, but that has not convinced users. That manufacturers like Dell change the discourse is significant and dangerous for Microsoft’s ambitious plans.
Microsoft is left alone. The company led by Satya Nadella has been flooding us with new AI features in Windows for a long time, but the problem is that most of these features are being received with indifference… or with total rejection. The Windows Recall example is the clearest: the feature seemed promisingbut its launch was involved in a great privacy controversy and its availability was delayed and currently it is an option that is barely talked about.
Thank you for your sincerity, Dell. Dell’s speech is surprising and appreciated. Especially after that continuous trickle of releases in which AI seemed to be the salvation of the PC and the key to a new golden age. These functions can end up being valuable, without a doubt, but what users continue to look for in their laptops, for example, is reliability and great autonomy, for example. That’s what still matters.
The PC faces a complicated future. Jeff Clarke, COO of Dell, participated in a media meeting at CES 2026 and also mentioned how in this industry “We have this unfulfilled promise of AI and the expectation that AI will drive demand from end users.” It is clear that Dell now has a different vision, but both it and other manufacturers face a very difficult few months because as Clarke said, “we are about to enter 2026 with a quite significant memory shortage“.
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