Jen Larson
General Manager, Commercial PC Business, Intel
Massimiliano Rossi
Vice President, Product Business Unit, Acer EMEA
AI PCs can boost productivity across multiple roles by automating tasks in growing areas such as finance, HR, legal and marketing to enable smarter decisions, faster workflows and more strategic focus.
Devices introducing AI-based workflows are creating more intelligence for personalised experiences based on roles within an organisation. Whether it’s automating everyday tasks, streamlining operations, empowering employees to focus on what truly matters, or giving IT teams greater control and insights, AI PCs are not just a tech upgrade — they’re a strategic advantage.
Transforming SME business
Experts foresee the integration of AI technologies as transforming SME business operations (small and medium enterprises) in areas such as addressing skills gaps and human-machine collaboration. Industry figures suggest that 86% of employers expect AI and information processing technologies to transform their business by 2030, with this expectation higher in Financial Services (97%) and Electronics (95%) sectors.
While a barrier to AI adoption is the lack of skills to support it, an opinion shared by 50% of executives worldwide, 77% of surveyed employers plan to reskill and upskill their existing workforce to work more effectively alongside AI by 2030.
Meanwhile, GenAI is seen as augmenting, rather than replacing, human work and demonstrates strengths in data mining, machine learning applications, multi-lingualism and can assist in summarising complex information, drafting text, performing calculations, and translation.
“GenAI is enhancing a range of employee skills that require nuanced understanding and problem-solving,” says Jen Larson, General Manager of Intel’s Commercial PC business. “It makes tasks easier and empowers employees to have access to increased levels of business intelligence, and that can have a profound impact on the quality of their work.”
Business benefits of AI solutions
Against this backdrop, AI PCs are becoming more accessible to SMEs as manufacturers expand production and introduce options at various price ranges. It is not only creative roles such as art designers or copywriters that boost their productivity by leveraging AI applications on AI PCs. Back-office functions like finance, legal and HR can also benefit.
Finance professionals can build rigorous financial models and presentations, drive key strategic decisions and deliver high-value work rather than spending time on mundane tasks; HR professionals can use AI tools for workforce planning, talent acquisition, improving candidate identification, better communication, learning and development and performance management; within legal departments, tasks like document review, contract analysis and legal research can be automated, allowing lawyers to focus on more complex work.
Dynamic gamechanger
Industry expert Massimiliano Rossi, who is Vice President of the Product Business Unit in Acer’s EMEA team, said organisations of all sizes, from large enterprises to small and mid-sized companies, will benefit from AI PCs.
“To support the AI transformation, the adoption of AI PCs is essential to revolutionise the workplace experience, allowing employers to reskill and upskill their teams,” he explains. “From brainstorming new ideas to analysing data more efficiently, the potential of AI PCs continues to grow.”
With a long battery life, even while using demanding AI-based apps, he believes AI PCs can be a gamechanger for different roles in SMEs. “For example, knowledge workers are able to enjoy smart task automation and real-time analytics of sales and inventory dashboard, freeing up time to focus on more strategic areas and have a more tailored PC experience based on their roles and tasks. Sales and marketing is another great example where we see the power of AI PCs enhance content creation development and generate strategic customer insight.”
SMEs that delay plans to embrace
AI technology may fall behind their
competition in terms of efficiency,
flexibility and growth opportunities.
Intelligent workflows
There have been significant changes observed in the past year following the launch of AI PCs and the continuous evolution of AI technology in performance, efficiency and security. “One of the most noticeable shifts,” says Rossi, “is how AI PCs have moved from a futuristic concept to a practical, beneficial tool that is significantly impacting our daily computing experience.
“This includes scaling AI PCs to a broad set of form factors from the notebook to desktop to mobile workstations, giving customers a choice based on what makes sense to their employees and helping create an important competitive advantage. It’s the ability to work smarter and solve problems faster.”
Strong partnership
Rossi points to a strong partnership between Acer and Intel in delivering an innovative portfolio of AI PCs, coming with NPU-power that designed to efficiently handle AI tasks and Copilot+ PCs, which require more than 40 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second). This new class of Windows PCs are built with powerful AI capabilities that run directly on devices — enabling even faster, smarter and more personalised experience for SMEs.
The AI solutions automate repetitive tasks and can lead to improved decision-making and streamlined workflows, resulting in cost savings and enhancing employee experience and retention. “With limited resources, AI PCs can help SME staff work more efficiently and intelligently – regardless of their role or function,” says Rossi.
Acer’s commercial portfolio includes AI PCs and Copilot+ PCs powered by Intel® Core™ Ultra processors with Intel vPro®, which is a dedicated platform for business. “The introduction of the AI PC is an important inflexion in our PC journey because Acer and Intel are driving a new era of intelligent experiences and also delivering on the fundamentals of a great PC experience,” he adds.
Extraordinary energy efficiency
Larson says Acer’s Copilot+ PCs with Intel Core Ultra 200V series processors offer extraordinary energy efficiency. These devices leverage NPUs with more than 40 TOPs and are combined with Intel’s Central Processing Unit (CPU) and Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) to deliver 3 dedicated AI engines. This provides unmatched processing speed and efficiency.
Users gain new levels of PC efficiency that make AI workflows like collaboration effortless with up to 40% lower power consumption.*
Security enhancement
A major advancement, she continues, is in AI security. “In a rapidly evolving threat landscape, Intel is using PC hardware to augment security software to deliver comprehensive protection.”
“This includes new ways to work with ISVs – Independent Software Providers – on security solutions that take advantage of Intel’s AI-hardware foundation to deliver faster threat detection for customers. This includes detecting and blocking a wide range of emerging cyber threats, including deepfakes, phishing attempts and firmware attacks,” says Larson.
Steps toward implementation
To fully capitalise on the advantages of AI PCs, organisations should take a strategic approach. They should:
- Identify key areas where AI can add value, such as operations and customer service;
- Regularly assess the performance of AI systems to ensure they meet business goals;
- Provide training programs to enhance employees’ understanding of AI technology and applications;
- Foster a culture of innovation by encouraging a mindset of experimentation within an organisation.
“SMEs that delay plans to embrace AI technology may fall behind their competition in terms of efficiency, flexibility and growth opportunities,” notes Larson. “In contrast, those that proactively adopt AI PCs are experiencing significant gains in productivity and security, enabling faster and easier access to new business opportunities.”
Test the waters
SMEs can “test the waters” with a pilot installation before scaling AI PCs deployments as employees become more comfortable with the transition. Acer and Intel say customers moving to AI PCs and Copilot+ PCs are generating better business outcomes that give them a competitive advantage, whilst also increasing employee satisfaction.
Rossi concludes: “We are actively collaborating with key business partners in adopting AI onto their operations. Some have shared with us that the future-proof AI PCs bringing in AI-driven solutions to optimise their workflow are empowering employees to handle complex workloads easier and faster.”
*As measured by SoC package power using Xsplit Vcam for background removal, auto framing, enhanced lighting,
