On paper everything was the sea of pretty. Copilot+ PCs wanted resurrect and reinvent the PC turning it into a device with which you can do much more with much less effort. There was a lot of talk about TOPS power, how AI would do a lot of things for us, and an argument that would boost sales. Do you know what?
Its impact has been practically zero.
For better or worse, the PC segment has not undergone major changes. Sales have not suddenly started to grow, nor have they plummeted. If the Copilot+ PCs wanted to boost sales, they certainly haven’t seemed to succeed. But at least they don’t seem to have had a negative impact either.
Own elaboration. Data: IDC
The arrival of AI features on PCs should theoretically have had an impact on PC sales by boosting them, but also theoretically on Mac sales, from which it should have stolen some share if AI had been an important argument.
As we know, Apple has barely emphasized the AI functions of its equipment. Although introduced Apple Intelligence in June 2024, it did so in a very limited way and almost a year and a half later its functions remain modest.
Own elaboration. Data: Apple quarterly reports.
The people keep buying Macbut not because of Apple Intelligence, but because they are just that, Mac. This has been noted throughout this period in which sales have remained relatively stable.
The Mac is a lot of Mac
The recent presentation of the MacBook Pro M5 could encourage sales towards the end of the year, but where Apple seems to have a winning horse is in the MacBook Air M4which has only been on the market for eight months and offers an enviable price-performance ratio.
In the US, for example, you can get it right now for 800 dollars (without taxes). Here, for 949 euros. Few Windows laptops can compete with Apple’s offering, which is surprisingly balanced and has extraordinary room for maneuver thanks to its Apple M4 chip.
When we tested the Acer Swift Go 14 AIFor example, we find a device that at 719 euros is undoubtedly cheaper and boasts 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of SSD, but is inferior in its chip, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus. In Geekbench single-core it is around 2,400 points, and in multi-core it is 10,500. The Apple M4 is around 3,600 and 15,000 points respectively.
Acer’s, like other manufacturers selling PC Copilot+, is on paper a comparatively decent proposal, but still fails to impose that TOPS argument and AI functions. They are there and can help, but they are not a decisive argument at the moment, at least if we look at the sales of these devices.
PC sales may pick up and boost in the short term, but if they do it will probably not be because of AI features, but for the simple reason that Official Windows 10 support has ended —although that has small print— and many users and companies may have decided to renew their IT infrastructure.
However, the promise that AI was going to revolutionize our PCs remains just that: a promise. Apple seems like it can rest easy. And it must be, because this last quarter the Mac division has grown 13% in revenue compared to the same period of the previous year. Not bad.
Image | Wesson Wang
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