Microsoft AI PCs take aim at Apple

Microsoft beating Apple to the punch with its first crop of AI copilots. The PCs going on Saturday. Steve Kovac joins us with more on the AI race. Hey, Steve. Yeah, this is a big one. And look, we know about the AI apps and other software after those weeks of announcements from the biggest companies in the game. But starting today, Microsoft is kicking off the artificial intelligence hardware race, launching about a dozen models of new AI computers months before Apple switches on all those AI features for Macs and iPhones that we heard about last week. And by the way, a big part of Microsoft's AI PC push, saying these latest devices outperform Apple's Max, Microsoft calls them Copilot Plus PCs, which is really just a clever marketing way of saying they're designed to process AI tasks on the device instead of over the Internet. And a lot of that is thanks to Qualcomm, which is going to ship its first PC chips in these new Copilot PCs. And it's coming from a bunch of different brands. Microsoft itself, of course, along with others like Samsung, HP, Dell, Lenovo, and a bunch of others that you're familiar with. The hope here, guys, Aipcs will help the market grow again after that post pandemic slump. Microsoft says it expects 50 million Copilot PCs will ship this year. But for a little perspective there, Gartner says nearly 242 million PCs were shipped in 2023. So these Aipcs will likely be just a tiny fraction of new computers. And what's the big deal here? What can you even do on a Copilot PC while they run a version of Windows with even more AI features? But days before today's launch, Microsoft had to remove the key feature, the marquee AI feature called recall, because of privacy concerns. Recall take screenshots every few seconds from your PC to create a searchable database of your history. What could possibly go wrong there? So they yank that feature for now. These PCs, though, still going to launch ahead of Apple, but missing that key AI feature. And by the way, still not clear if AI PCs or phones or all this hardware talk talking about is enough to spur upgrades. Same story with Apple and what it announced last week. Guys, you need to go faster with all this stuff. What do you make? I don't know. I'm not seeing. I want it now. I want it now, right. I saw that I drove by the you're buying one. No, but I drove by the Microsoft Store on the way. On the way here. I mean, so you're not buying. They're like no, no, no, I don't need a computer right now. You don't need AII don't, but that's the thing. That's the you buy a new phone, the Apple phone. Well, that's and that's what's interesting about the Apple thing. They're going way old school and making features only available for the newest. Remember the planned obsolescence everyone needs to get on Apple about? They're doing that here with the artificial intelligence thing. And look, it's still unclear if the the hardware side of things, if there's money to be made there. People really want these AI features. And by the way, for consumers, for regular folks or even enterprise, which is, you know, a big deal for Microsoft as well, The the real question is, are these features good enough to make people saying, hmm, I didn't need a PC this year, but now I do. My instant bias is that I don't want to be a beta tester. This stuff is. I mean, is that a reasonable expectation? That's definitely reasonable. And by the way, this is beta. And that recall feature I was talking about, that is a test feature. So yes, you will be a beta tester. It's not going to be perfect. They're saying this is Apple and Microsoft, by the way. They're saying it's not going to be perfect. It's going to be a while for it all to shake out. Yeah. And when will I say, wow, AI is great. How many? How many? I wish I could tell you that right now the answer is not today. Should I ask AI When? When I what? I'm it'll tell you right now. I'm sure it will. You should ask a ask. Don't ask Siri because it'll tell you who knows what it's going to tell you and it'll no, I we, I've already been. I feel bad. I've I've been a year ago. I feel bad. I've been saying such bad things about Siri recently. I'm a little deserved. I think it's deserved. I know they're crying, they're trying the the $3 trillion company is just trying really hard. Yeah. Is this the benefits of AII mean Joe's, right? When am I going to say I absolutely need it? But am I? Is it going to be benefiting me without me really realizing it beneath the surface? I think so. I think yes. But also what I think is, you know, we're talking about, we're talking about this race right now between who can launch first. Eventually it's not going to matter. Remember, like in the late 90s, it's like, oh, we have Internet now on a PCs now it's just table stakes. I can see that happening sooner than later. So it's just going to be like having Wi-Fi on your phone or something. It's gonna be like it come out. Exactly. Yeah, we're almost there. That's not a profitable. No, not, not at all.