The Defining AI PC Moment For The IT Channel

AI PCs are expected to make up a majority of the PC market within the next three years. In January, Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing, told CRN that AI PCs will dominate 80% of the market in that time frame.

This acceleration comes as public AI perception remains mixed and research from The Channel Company found that only 12% of solution providers were actively rolling out AI PCs just months ago. Today, channel sentiment is shifting from AI PC hesitation to adoption that brings the power of AI and LLMs closer to users.

With this shift comes urgency and opportunity for solution providers as clients navigate the emerging AI-powered possibilities for their business.

“If we would have had this conversation last year, I would have said it was definitely more on the hype cycle,” said Jasen Meece, president of Clutch Solutions, a value added reseller (VAR) based in the US and Canada. “Now what we’re finding is [AI PCs are] becoming a need.”

What Are AI PCs?

AI PCs are a new class of personal computers designed to run AI workloads directly on the device. This is made possible by Neural Processing Units (NPUs) and advanced Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) that process AI tasks locally, rather than fully relying on cloud resources.

AI PCs offer benefits on a wide “continuum” that includes high-performance AI compute, improved battery life, and faster, higher-quality collaboration and data analysis capabilities.

Solution providers ability to future-proof customers’ personal computers is a key benefit of AI PCs, said Alli Heeter, senior manager of consumer product management at Lenovo, told CRNtv earlier this year.

“Customers are trying to get the best bang for their buck on these devices, expecting them to last as long as they can,” Heeter said. “Having a device that’s prepared for what this AI transformation is likely going to bring is really what ThinkPads are built for.”

AI PC Benefits On The Horizon For Channel Partners

This means solution provider customer conversations now extend well beyond hardware. Knowledge workers with AI PCs access powerful local AI processing to explain data and create useful outputs without increasing cloud costs. Meanwhile, large-scale training and inferencing lean on cloud and data center resources.

“It’s not replacing the cloud. It’s not replacing the server,” Meece explained. “It’s taking an endpoint and further extending out the ability for really high compute value.”

The Rising AI PC Advisory Role

Rather than just hardware pricing and deployment speed questions, customers are turning to solution providers to better understand how endpoints, on-prem infrastructure and cloud resources work together. There's demand for providers to become core advisors who bridge workload, device and software decisions, and help customers understand what belongs local, what should remain centralized, and how to implement AI use cases to achieve business goals.

AI PCs represent a multi-year transformation opportunity for providers, and a chance to move from transactional sales to long-term strategic engagement with customers.

Learn more in the CRN AI in Action Newsroom.