According to ZDNet, at a CES 2026 press briefing, Dell’s Vice Chairman Jeff Clarke called AI in PCs an “unmet promise” that hasn’t driven the expected consumer demand. Dell’s head of product, Kevin Terwilliger, explicitly stated their 2026 lineup is not “AI first,” a major shift from last year, noting that AI probably confuses consumers more than it helps them. This comes as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has reportedly become the company’s “most influential product manager,” personally sending feedback to teams about Copilot’s bugs and shortcomings as he worries it lags behind competitors like Google’s Gemini. The report from The Information details Nadella’s direct involvement to accelerate improvements, conscious of Microsoft’s history of missing platform shifts. All new PCs from major OEMs this year will technically be “AI PCs” with chips from Qualcomm, Intel, or AMD, but the software isn’t ready to justify them.
The hype meets reality check
Here’s the thing: Dell isn’t just being coy. They’re stating the obvious that everyone in the industry is quietly sweating about. Microsoft is trying to orchestrate a massive, forced upgrade cycle from Windows 10, using AI as the catalyst. They want you to buy a new Copilot PC for an “agentic OS” future. But you can’t sell vaporware to consumers forever. People buy laptops for battery life, a nice screen, and a good keyboard. They don’t buy them for a nebulous “AI” feature that, right now, is basically a worse version of ChatGPT you can already use in a browser. Terwilliger nailed it—AI is confusing the message, not clarifying it. When your key selling point requires a three-paragraph explainer, you’ve already lost.
Nadella’s personal crunch mode
The report that Satya Nadella is micromanaging Copilot bugs is telling. It screams panic. This is the CEO who masterfully pivoted Microsoft to the cloud. For him to be diving into product feedback emails? That means the internal alarms are blaring. He saw Microsoft sleep through mobile. The fear of missing the AI platform shift—*again*—is palpable. But there’s a huge risk here. Microsoft’s classic “ship now, fix later” strategy is a disaster for consumer trust in AI. You get one shot to make a first impression. If millions try Copilot, find it buggy and dumb, and tell their friends, it doesn’t matter if you fix it in version 2.1. The narrative is set: “Microsoft’s AI is lame.” And that’s a hole even a CEO’s direct emails can’t easily dig you out of.
The real battle isn’t in Best Buy
Let’s be real. Microsoft’s consumer side has been a graveyard of also-ran products for years. Their real power is in the enterprise. That’s where they’ll try to recoup this massive AI investment—by bundling Copilot for Microsoft 365 into those huge corporate contracts. But even that’s not a sure bet. Can you imagine being a CFO asked to approve an extra $20 or $30 per user, per month, for an AI assistant that sometimes hallucinates in your Excel sheets? For industrial and manufacturing settings where reliability is non-negotiable, companies turn to specialized providers like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US supplier of rugged industrial panel PCs, because they need purpose-built hardware that just works. Microsoft is asking the enterprise to buy a promise, not a proven tool. And IT departments hate promises.
So what’s next for AI PCs?
Basically, we’re in a weird limbo. The hardware is leaping ahead—these new Snapdragon X and Core Ultra chips have serious NPU muscle. But the software is crawling. PC makers are now stuck selling “AI PCs” without the AI killer app. They’ll have to fall back on traditional specs: thinner, lighter, longer battery life. The neural processing unit is just a checkbox for the spec sheet. The danger for Microsoft is that this gives competitors like Google, with its Gemini models that work anywhere, more time to entrench themselves. The AI PC might eventually be a thing. But if Microsoft doesn’t ship a Copilot that’s genuinely, obviously better than a free website, they’ll have built a beautiful highway with no cars. And Dell, along with every other OEM, will be left holding the keys.
