I covered the return of the XPS line to Dell yesterday, and I may have mischaracterized their position on AI PCs. Dell has acknowledged that consumers are not currently prioritizing artificial intelligence features in their personal computers. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Kevin Terwilliger, Dell’s head of product, stated that while all their new products will include a Neural Processing Unit, the company has learned that consumers are not making purchasing decisions based on AI capabilities. Instead, these features often confuse users rather than clarify the benefits. This statement comes amid Microsoft’s ongoing push for AI integration in Windows and its Copilot Plus PCs, which have faced their own challenges, including delays in launching key features due to security concerns.
Why do we care?
I did want to make sure to get this right. This is where the AI PC story needs a reality check.
Dell isn’t backing away from AI. They’re saying something more important: customers don’t care yet. Not because AI is unimportant, but because it’s being delivered without context, without reliability, and without a clear reason to change buying behavior.
And that puts MSPs in a dangerous spot. If you start pitching AI PCs as a reason to refresh hardware, you’re making a promise you can’t operationalize. When the user experience doesn’t change—or worse, becomes confusing—you own that disappointment.
The smarter read is that NPUs are infrastructure, not outcomes. They’re there to satisfy Microsoft’s roadmap and future workloads, not to justify today’s invoice. Treating them otherwise risks credibility.
This matters now because hardware decisions lock in three to five years of client experience. Selling the story before the value shows up is how you turn “AI-ready” into “AI-regret.”