‘Agentic AI’ PCs? Not much new here, say analysts

Nvidia and Microsoft this month touted the reinvention of computers with a new class of “agentic AI PCs” that will “reinvent the way PCs work.” That’s how Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described the computers at the recent Computex trade show. At the event, Nvidia introduced its first AI-focused PC chip called N1X, which has an integrated CPU and GPU and will be used in agentic AI PCs. Nvidia’s new RTX Spark PCs are the first in a major “PC reinvention for 40 years,” Huang said, likening them to AI phones. “You could talk to it, it could look at you. You could ask it to read files [or] go help you do research.” Not so fast, say analysts, who argue the computers are mostly repackaged AI PCs that shouldn’t necessarily drive enterprise upgrades. “Agentic AI PCs is a strange term that should probably be deemphasized,” said Leonard Lee, principal analyst at neXt Curve. “Depending on use case, PCs of the last two generations are ‘agentic AI’-capable.” Skeptical of the hype, analysts said many current PCs are already capable of running agents, such as those spun up on device by OpenClaw. Those agents don’t need to communicate with AI models in the cloud. In fact, Lee said, Apple has already shown that Windows isn’t needed to run agentic workloads, with the Mac Mini among the most talked-about device for hosting personal AI agents and OpenClaw. Analysts said the definition of agentic AI PCs really comes down to the hardware inside, which largely defines their capabilities. Most are really just an evolution of earlier AI PCs, which arrived a few years ago amid similar hype. AI PCs, specifically CoPilot+ PCs, were originally designed with neural processing units (NPUs) to support the requirements of Windows Recall. “Some argue agentic AI PCs need more GPU compute, butQualcomm and Microsoft would counter that agentic AI PCs have been around for a while,” Lee said. To highlight the capabilities of the RTX Spark PC, a demonstration at Computex showed how an architectural design workflow could be split between the PC and the cloud. (An MCP server managed data exchange to facilitate the cloud-PC workflow.) Adobe has reengineered Photoshop and Premiere for RTX Spark PCs, allowing the software to communicate with AI agents on PCs and tools to run twice as fast, Huang said. And at the company’s recent Build conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella demonstrated the new Surface Laptop Ultra AI PC based on the RTX Spark design. He positioned agentic AI PCs as running a new execution layer that can act across files and devices, including generating and executing code. While AI PCs with agents will be capable, they still lack applications, said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research. “However, PCs — especially the small form factor PCs and workstations — are likely to be the home AI appliance,” he said. For enterprises, upgrading to RTX Spark PCs at this point could pose problems. That’s because Nvidia’s N1X CPU is based on the Arm processor architecture and could run into compatibility issues with x86 applications designed for Intel and AMD chips. “Despite Arm processors being available for a while, enterprise penetration stays small, since compatibility with all apps, drivers, and corporate systems is critical and requires extensive testing, even though Microsoft has done a reasonably good job with Windows 11 on Arm,” said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates. Because Microsoft is moving to natively incorporate AI into Windows, those PCs will land in enterprises ultimately, Gold said. Regardless of hype, it might be a good time for enterprises chasing an agentic AI agenda to upgrade laggard Windows 10 devices, Lee said. “Considering the considerable hype about agentic AI, early adopters will need to upgrade their fleets if they pursue a broad agentic AI agenda for their organizations,” he said.