The 21st Century Economic Reporter Zhang Zitong reports from Shanghai
On May 20, local time in the United States, Microsoft released a new generation of Copilot+PC with built-in GPT-4o model, which symbolized that AI PC entered a new era.
Compared with many AI PCs launched earlier, this time Microsoft introduced its AI assistant Copilot into the Windows system and built in the GPT-4o model of OpenAI. Its hardware AI computing power is said to be able to perform more than 40 trillion operations per second. According to Microsoft's official test, the multithreading performance of its first Copilot+PC, the new Surface Pro, is 58% higher than that of Apple's MacBook Air.
In the opinion of industry insiders, AI PC, as a platform with powerful computing and storage capabilities, is currently the most suitable for accommodating complete general reasoning capabilities, so it is expected to be the preferred terminal of AI Pratt&Whitney to "take the lead in submission".
Therefore, actively embracing AI PC has also become Microsoft's "key move" under Apple's "sniping" - expanding its first mover advantage in market competition by developing AI tools that consumers are willing to pay for. At the same time, Microsoft's close cooperation with OpenAI also keeps it ahead in the competition with Apple and Alphabet.
"Compared with traditional PCs, AI PCs can complete more operations and assist users in their work, life, learning, creativity, etc. in more scenarios. More powerful auxiliary functions will bring new user requirements in many scenarios. In terms of interaction, AI PC has personal intelligence, which is further improved on the basis of voice and screen interaction, semantic understanding and image interaction, and may develop to naked eye 3D, biometrics and other aspects in the future. " Chen Shuxin, senior research manager of IDC China, said in an interview with the 21st Century Economic Report.
According to Canalys' prediction, AI PC penetration rate will be about 19% in 2024, and will exceed 60% by 2027.
AI PC New Era
"We are entering a new era, in which computers can not only understand us, but also predict our needs and intentions!" Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at the Microsoft press conference.
Specifically, AI PC, which is highly expected by Microsoft, has mainly solved the two major problems of "content review" and "real-time translation" in terms of actual functions.
At the press conference, Microsoft said that with the help of the new function of "Recall", users can easily find the content they have browsed or the tasks they have processed on their PCs. Windows 11 AI PC can sort out information based on unique connections and associations in personal experience just like human beings. It can quickly and intuitively retrieve the content that users want to find according to the clue fragments in memory, and help users recall those things that have almost been forgotten.
In addition, another major feature of Windows 11 AI PC is real-time subtitles with real-time translation function. This function can automatically translate the live broadcast or recorded broadcast audio on any App or video platform into English subtitles in real time, support translation in more than 40 languages including Chinese, convert the audio transmitted by PC into unified English subtitles, and display them in real time on the App display window. This function can be realized even if the user is offline.
It is worth noting that in addition to common function upgrades, Microsoft emphasized the advantages of AI PC in deep collaboration with existing software at this press conference.
According to Microsoft, when the first batch of Copilot+PCs were launched in June, Google Chrome browser, music streaming Spotify, video calling software Zoom, video editing software DaVinci Resolve and several Adobe software will natively support the Windows system developed for Arm chip.
Tracy Tsai, vice president of Gartner Research, said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald that with the blessing of AI, users can complete more tasks locally when using terminals without having to transfer data to the cloud.
"Local GenAI applications can run in an offline environment, for example, meeting minutes can be transcribed or images can be searched on a PC without relying on the cloud. This local processing method has great appeal to users (whether consumers or enterprise employees) who are unwilling to upload personal or sensitive information to the cloud. In addition, AI applications can provide local intelligent video production support for scenes requiring low latency and a large amount of local data processing, such as a large number of videos, music and voice integrated into video presentations. " Tracy Tsai said.
Microsoft and Apple "face to face"
In fact, for Microsoft, in addition to the "muscle show" in technology, the more important significance of this rush to launch AI PC is to win the opportunity to define the AI terminal in the next era before Apple.
It is reported that Apple plans to announce at the global developer conference next month that it will embed a high-end chip similar to the Mac into the cloud computing server to handle advanced AI tasks on Apple devices. The simpler AI functions will be executed directly on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
At the same time, analysts predict that Apple will also follow Microsoft's lead in upgrading its intelligent assistant Siri at the developer conference next month, and develop a strategy to integrate more AI functions into laptops and iPhones.
"Apple's performance is really impressive, and we hope to see the real competition between Windows and Mac again," Satya Nadella said in an interview on the same day of the press conference.
At the same day's press conference, Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's vice president and chief marketing officer of consumer goods, directly compared the Windows 11 AI PC with Apple's Mac, saying that it "is 58% faster than the most advanced MacBook Air equipped with M3 processors. All (PCs) are equipped with batteries that can last a whole day."
However, in the final analysis, the fact that AI PC can really become popular depends on whether these companies can provide consumers with sufficient replacement agents.
“ The value of AI application depends on the specific benefits it brings to consumers or enterprise employees. " Tracy Tsai analyzed the reporter of the 21st Century Business Herald that as more and more independent software suppliers, system integrators or application suppliers develop AI applications running locally, small language models provided by commercial or open source suppliers play an important role in the key scene of local operation. At the same time, enterprise deployment needs extensive experiments and verification to ensure that the commercial value of AI PC can support this investment and enterprise management AI architecture.
"In addition, the maturity of the market or ecosystem shows that more and more AI PC developers are creating purposeful AI applications that bring value to enterprises or consumers. PC OEMs are more actively innovating and experimenting. They are defining new AI PCs designed for specific users and markets. These products not only provide significant customer value, but also go beyond the limitations of traditional forms, operating systems or architectures and strengthen the AI function of the device itself. Finally, the government's AI regulations can also help define data privacy management rules and risk control to support enterprise adoption. " Tracy Tsai said.
In Chen Shuxin's opinion, on the one hand, with the continuous promotion of upstream and manufacturers, AI PC will quickly replace some of the original PCs. In addition, from the user side, AI PC is indeed a more suitable product for AI Pratt&Whitney. AI PC can cope with many scenarios, and both the B side and the C side can greatly assist people's productivity.
