Partner content: Why Intel’s Core Ultra processors will see the AI PC shine

The AI PC market is gathering pace. What started as a premium category has shifted into the mainstream, driven by Intel's second-gen Core Ultra 200V series processors.

For IT leaders planning their next endpoint refresh, the question is no longer whether AI PCs are worth the premium, it’s how they can best deploy and utilise them.

From premium to practical

Intel designed its latest Core Ultra generation with improved energy performance, without sacrificing performance, as the primary criterion. The result is a processor that delivers the compute power needed for local AI workloads without the thermal or battery penalties that have previously constrained thin and light laptops.

Systems that once cost £1,200 to £1,500 now start around £600. This price shift matters. Budget constraints have consistently ranked as the leading obstacle to AI PC adoption according to Computing’s own research.

The Core Ultra 200V series is the product of Intel's dedicated focus on the PC platform. Unlike competitors, Intel built these processors for business computing tasks.

The architecture reflects this focus – energy efficiency gains of up to 40% in system-on-chip power compared to the previous generation, integrated memory for reduced physical footprint, and a 48 TOPS neural processing unit that meets Microsoft's Copilot+ requirements.

Platform advantages

More than 100 system designs from 20-plus OEMs will ship with 2nd gen Core Ultra processors. This scale and choice matters for IT teams who need consistent hardware across distributed workforces and predictable support channels.

The processor architecture combines new performance and efficiency cores, working together to deliver more performance at lower power than previous generations. The graphics capability separates Intel from competitors whose processors show weaker performance in visual workloads. For organisations running design software, video conferencing or data visualisation tools, the integrated GPU handles these tasks without requiring discrete graphics.

However, Intel's position in the AI PC market stems from its broader platform approach, rather than component specifications alone. Intel vPro brings enterprise management capabilities that have been tested across millions of endpoints. Remote management, hardware-based security features, and out-of-band access remain core requirements for IT teams managing distributed fleets. These features integrate with existing IT infrastructure, avoiding the need for new tooling.

The CrowdStrike incident in mid-2024 demonstrated, very publicly, the value of hardware-level management features. One airline equipped with Intel vPro systems restored operations within hours while competitors required days to recover. The on-the-metal manageability features that enable this kind of rapid response have been part of Intel's platform for years, but the incident highlighted their importance in business continuity planning.

Software ecosystem

These hardware advances would be little benefit without similar gains on the software side. Intel has worked closely with its partners to deliver more than 470 AI features across its ISV ecosystem . Applications like BUFFERZONE SafeBridge use the NPU architecture for accelerated endpoint security, scanning memory up to seven times faster using GPU acceleration. Meanwhile, Canvid, a screen recording tool, relies on local AI execution to offer perpetual licensing and address data privacy concerns that cloud-based AI raises.

These real-world applications demonstrate how local AI processing delivers tangible value, improved security posture, reduced latency, offline functionality, and data sovereignty. Security applications making use of accelerated processors on the NPU also often boost the performance and battery life of their host devices – mitigating the frustrating system slowdowns that endpoint security software often inflicts.

The shift to local AI processing also addresses security and compliance requirements that cloud-based alternatives cannot meet. Healthcare organisations handling protected health information, financial services firms managing sensitive customer data, and public sector agencies with classified material need AI capabilities that never leave the device. Core Ultra processors enable these use cases.

A forward-thinking refresh

With support for more than 500 optimised AI models, as organisations experiment with different AI workloads – document processing, real-time translation, predictive analytics, content generation – they need hardware that can adapt to changing requirements without requiring new purchases. IT leaders should therefore specify devices today that will support their use cases for the next three to five years, across the entire refresh cycle.

Windows 10 end-of-support in October 2025 has created a forced refresh cycle where organisations must replace or upgrade millions of endpoints. IT leaders who planned to delay AI PC adoption now face a decision: refresh to traditional PCs that will require another upgrade when AI capabilities become ubiquitous, or move directly to AI-capable systems that meet both current and future requirements.

Intel has been working with OEMs to position commercial AI PCs for mainstream users. The performance gap between AI PCs and traditional PCs continues to widen as software developers add AI features to a wide variety of applications. As AI capabilities proliferate in software, organisations deploying PCs today that don’t have an NPU will likely need to refresh them again sooner than if they had deployed AI PCs.

The path forward

The AI PC category has matured faster than many predicted. Intel's Core Ultra 200V series processors bring the combination of performance, platform support, and pricing needed for mainstream enterprise adoption. IT leaders evaluating their next endpoint refresh should assess whether their current plans account for the rapid integration of AI features into standard business applications.

To find out more about Intel’s latest Core Ultra generation, click here.