Estimated 48 million AI-capable PCs will ship globally in 2024

Canalys’ latest forecast predicts that an estimated 48 million AI-capable PCs will ship worldwide in 2024, representing 18% of total personal computer (PC) shipments. 

And the research group says this is just the start of a major market transition, with AI-capable PC shipments projected to surpass 100 million in 2025, 40% of all PC shipments. In 2028, Canalys expects vendors to ship 205 million AI-capable PCs, representing a staggering compound annual growth rate of 44% between 2024 and 2028. 

These PCs, integrating dedicated AI accelerators, such as Neural Processing Units (NPUs), will unlock new capabilities for productivity, personalization and power efficiency, disrupting the PC market and delivering significant value gains to vendors and their partners, according to Canalys.

How/when will Apple implement AI on Macs? Only the tech giant knows for sure. But in an October 2023 “Power On” newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said that “one of the most intense and widespread endeavors at Apple Inc. right now is its effort to respond to the AI frenzy sweeping the technology industry.”

He said that the tech giant has built its own large language model called Ajax and rolled out an internal chatbot dubbed “Apple GPT” to test out the functionality. The critical next step is determining if the technology is up to snuff with the competition and how Apple will actually apply it to its products, according to Gurman.

He said that Apple’s senior vice presidents in charge of AI and software engineering, John Giannandrea and Craig Federighi, are spearheading the effort. On Cook’s team, they’re referred to as the “executive sponsors” of the generative AI push. 

“Eddy Cue, the head of services, is also involved, I’m told. The trio are now on course to spend about $1 billion per year on the undertaking,” Gurman wrote. “Giannandrea is overseeing development of the underlying technology for a new AI system, and his team is revamping Siri in a way that will deeply implement it. This smarter version of Siri could be ready as soon as next year, but there are still concerns about the technology and it may take longer for Apple’s AI features to spread across its product line.”

Also from his report: 

° Federighi’s software engineering group is adding AI to the next version of iOS. 

° Apple’s software engineering teams are also looking at integrating generative AI into development tools like Xcode.

° Cue’s organization is pushing to add AI to as many apps as possible. The group is exploring new features for Apple Music, including auto-generated playlists, as well as the company’s productivity apps.