By Max A. Cherney
SEATTLE (Reuters) -Microsoft debuted a new category of personal computers with AI features on Monday as it races to build the emerging technology into products across its business and compete with Alphabet (NASDAQ:) and Apple (NASDAQ: ).
At an event on campus in Redmond, Washington, CEO Satya Nadella introduced what Microsoft (NASDAQ:) calls “Copilot+” PCs and said Microsoft and a number of manufacturers would sell them, including Acer and Asustek Computer.
Microsoft launched the laptops as stock trading near record highs following a rally on Wall Street, driven by expectations that AI will drive strong profit growth for the company and its Big Tech rivals.
The new computers can perform more artificial intelligence tasks without relying on cloud data centers. They start at $1,000 and will ship June 18.
Thanks to the ability to process AI data directly on the computer, Copilot+ has a feature called ‘Recall’. “Recall” tracks everything done on the computer, from web browsing to voice chats, and creates a history stored on the computer that the user can search for whenever they need to remember something they did, even months later on.
The company also demonstrated its Copilot voice assistant that acts as a real-time virtual coach for a user playing the video game “Minecraft.”
Yusuf Mehdi, head of consumer marketing at Microsoft, said the company expects to purchase 50 million AI PCs in the next year. At the press event, he said that faster AI assistants running directly on a PC will be “the most compelling reason to upgrade your PC in a long time.”
Global PC shipments fell about 15% to 242 million last year, according to a research firm Gartner (NYSE:), showing that Microsoft expects the new category of computers to make up about one-fifth of all PC sales.
“People just need to be convinced that the device experience alone justifies this entirely new category of Copilot+ machines,” says analyst Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies.
Microsoft’s new “Copilot+” computer marketing category, which emphasizes AI features, is reminiscent of the “Ultrabook” category of thin Windows laptops that Intel (NASDAQ:) promoted to PC makers in 2011 to compete with the MacBook Air from Apple.
Microsoft executives also said that GPT-4o, the latest technology from ChatGPT maker OpenAI, will be available “soon” as part of Copilot.
Microsoft also introduced a new generation of its own Surface Pro tablet and Surface Laptop with Qualcomm chips (NASDAQ:) based on Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:)’ architecture. It also introduced a technology called Prism, which helps software written for Intel and AMD (NASDAQ:) chips run on chips made with Arm technology.
Microsoft showed off its new devices in action against an Apple device, with photo editing software from Adobe (NASDAQ:) running faster on the Microsoft device. Apple earlier this month showed off a new AI-focused chip that analysts expect will be used in future laptops.
After Intel’s processors dominated the PC market for decades, Qualcomm and other makers of lower-powered Arm components have tried to compete in the Windows PC market.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon
Microsoft held the product event a day before its annual developer conference.
Microsoft is looking to extend its early lead in the race to produce AI tools that consumers are willing to pay for. The partnership with OpenAI allowed it to give Alphabet an edge in their race to dominate the field.
Last week, OpenAI and Alphabet’s Google showed off dueling AI technologies that can respond and interrupt in real-time via voice, both hallmarks of realistic voice conversations that AI voice assistants have found challenging. Google also announced that it will be rolling out several generative AI features to its lucrative search engine.
Windows PC makers have been under increasing pressure from Apple since the company launched its custom chips, based on designs from Arm, and ditched Intel’s processors. Apple-designed processors have given Mac computers superior battery life and faster performance than rivals’ chips.
Microsoft tapped Qualcomm to lead efforts to move the Windows operating system to Arm’s chip designs in 2016. Qualcomm has exclusivity on Microsoft Windows devices that expires this year. Other chip designers such as Nvidia (NASDAQ:) are busy making their own Arm-based PC chips, Reuters previously reported.
