For many, the AI PC revolution can’t come fast enough. So how do we speed it up? Host Olivier Blanchard, Research Director & Practice Lead, Artificial Intelligence Devices at The Futurum Group, is joined by Dell Technologies‘ Jon Siegal, SVP, Dell Product Marketing, on this episode of the Six Five On The Road. They share in-depth analysis on the benefits of AI PCs and accelerating adoption of AI in personal computing.
Tune in as they cover:
- The rise of hybrid AI: AI workloads moving beyond the cloud to the edge and devices
- Dell Pro AI Studio: A free toolkit that simplifies AI development and deployment, allowing developers to “build once, run anywhere”
- AI PCs: These high-performance, energy-efficient machines can empower developers and enable new use cases like offline RAG models and on-device translation
- Dell’s initiatives to boost on-device AI capabilities and innovation through the integration of Neural Processing Units (NPUs)
- The current landscape of AI PC adoption and how customers are utilizing Dell’s AI solutions in their day-to-day operations
Get details on the latest announcements from CES 2025 and learn more at Dell Technologies.
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Transcript:
Olivier Blanchard: Hi, this is Olivier Blanchard with The Futurum Group, and I’m here with Jon Siegal, SVP Products Marketing with Dell. Thanks for joining us today and being in the chair.
Jon Siegal: It’s great to be here.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah, so there’s a lot of exciting stuff happening.
Jon Siegal: There is.
Olivier Blanchard: So I thought I’d ask you a few questions.
Jon Siegal: Yeah, let’s do it.
Olivier Blanchard: And obviously we’re going to start with AI.
Jon Siegal: Why not?
Olivier Blanchard: Why not? I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. So let me just read the question. AI adoption is a hot topic, and the reason I’m asking, I’m reading the question is because it’s in three parts. So part one, what do you see with customers? How are they interacting with AI now? And then the follow-up I guess is what kinds of conversations are you having with them about AI?
Jon Siegal: Yeah, and that’s great. Those are all great questions. AI is definitely the cool kid at the playground, as we’ve seen, and you know from your research as well. It’s the hottest thing going right now, literally, right? There’s not a single industry that’s not touched by this. There’s not a single functional area that’s not touched by this in any company. It’s everywhere. It’s transforming industries and it’s making us all think differently about our roles. So it’s a really, really exciting space. And also, what we’re hearing from customers more than anything else is they’re all over the journey. Some of them are just getting started with AI. Some of them are at least in the middle innings, if you will, of deploying, but the vast majority are really at that early stage and just trying to figure out what’s next.
And so we’ve been really hard at work trying to help those customers get the most out of AI and help them ensure that they can help them accelerate, get whatever outcomes they want to get out of it, as you know. And that’s one of our biggest focus areas. Another thing we hear in the conversations with customers is they’re trying to figure out which models to use. How do I get started? Where do I run AI? And one thing we’re committed to at Dell is helping our customers run AI wherever it makes the most sense. Could be in the data center, could be in the cloud, could be hybrid, could be on device at the edge. We’re committed to that and we’re really committed to helping our customers simplify that. And that’s where the AI factory comes in. I think you’re probably familiar with it.
Olivier Blanchard: We’re going to circle back to that.
Jon Siegal: You’re going to go back to that, but a lot of our conversations now are really, I would say on the early side of it, helping our customers figure out where they should go. And a lot of the use cases right now in the cloud anyway, in the data center are really more focused around training. But what we expect to see more and more now is AI use cases moving more towards the inferencing side, and with inferencing comes edge because you want to move inferencing as close to the data as possible. That’s where the AI PC comes in. It’s really well positioned to help our customers and others in the industry embrace AI and make sure that they can actually apply AI to their data.
Olivier Blanchard: And we’ve noticed the trend, at least in the last year, we were noticing that the models are becoming a lot more efficient. And so a lot of the models that we’re running in the cloud last year are already starting to run on device. And some of the ones that are running in the cloud this year will run on device next year. Which actually kind of leads me to my next question. So on this adoption journey for AI and this hybrid model that started with cloud and moving to the edge, moving to devices, what is Dell doing specifically to accelerate adoption of AI on device and also to drive innovation on the NPU specifically?
Jon Siegal: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. So one of the announcements this week was something focused on that, was that the Dell Pro AI Studio, and really where this came from was exactly what you just were, was customers coming to us saying, “What can I run on the NPU?” And right now there are just so many opportunities. The NPU is a very efficient, very powerful, if you will, cost-effective compute, if you will, on device. But what ISVs and enterprises and SIs are trying to figure out first and foremost is how to make it simple. And so it’s a complex process as you know, trying to figure out what model to use. There’s so many models, they’re changing all the time. What silicon those models run on, what type of NPU? Or is it a GPU? Wait, if I write it once, is it going to run on this silicon but not that silicon?
And that can take months. We find on average it can take up to six months from, if you will, developing to actually deploying a new AI application on a PC, on AI PCs, on device. And so our goal is to really shrink that with the Dell Pro AI Studio and really help our customers accelerate that whole process. And that means helping them, for example, pick a model up at the start using, for example, leveraging our relationship with Hugging Face, picking an open-source model that’s going to fit the criteria. And then also, as you mentioned earlier, this could be a hybrid deployment. So we’re also about helping our customers figure out where this should run. It could be in a hybrid world. So based on their outcome, we first ask them what are they trying to achieve, and from that, we will work with either SIs or enterprises, et cetera, to help figure out the right model, how to build that AI, but application, build it once, deploy it, and then it can run anywhere.
Olivier Blanchard: And that’s additive, right? It’s not an either or, you’re not competing against other products. It’s basically like what they’re already using, you just add this on top of it?
Jon Siegal: That’s right. I mean, look, we are taking this leadership role in the industry more than anything else to help our customers and partners. And we feel like this is what’s needed. There’s a lot of promise, a lot of fascination with what AI could do on device. Again, whether it’s productivity, security, creativity, there’s so many different ideas. And what we want to do is really help facilitate that. And the way to do that we felt was with this studio concept, which is a toolkit essentially, where we can help develop it once, run it anywhere, and that ultimately we hope will simplify and accelerate adoption on device.
Olivier Blanchard: So you jumped ahead to my next question, so I don’t need to ask it anymore.
Jon Siegal: I do that.
Olivier Blanchard: Yes, you do. You read my mind. But just to kind of close the loop on this, is there anything, I mean other than it’s the uniqueness that we’ve already talked about, is there anything that sets it apart from other solutions like this that might pop up in the market or that are already out in the market? Anything like specific differentiators that we should know about?
Jon Siegal: I mean, there’s a lot of things we’re really proud of when it comes to our AI PCs. And with the announcements this week, we’re first making sure that we have a broad set of options for our customers. We pride ourselves in the best durability and customers expect quality. We have the most secure, the easiest to manage PCs in the market. We continue to have those. Sustainability continues to be a real big focus for us. Made a number of announcements there as well. We are committed to continued innovation in this space and giving our customers, again, the best choice possible. But to us, it’s not just about the PCs themselves, it’s also about the whole, if you will, experience. So with the PCs, oftentimes you’re going to have peripherals and displays.
And so another part of our announcement this week was also ensuring and helping our customers have a good experience across the desk, as we call it. So from the cameras to the keyboards to the displays to the PC, providing the IT manager a simple way to configure and manage and optimize for AI, because we know a lot of AI applications really benefit from the peripherals. And so that’s another thing that we’re doing as well. So we’re really about improving the customer experience overall. And with our investment in this Dell Pro AI Studio, which is no charge to our customers, it’s a commitment from us to help them simplify adoption.
Olivier Blanchard: And that was a surprise when I found out I thought you would monetize that. You could, you just choose not to, which is nice. So what we’re really talking about is more distributed AI than it is… I mean, it’s hybrid. We talk about hybrid AI, basically pocket to cloud or cloud to device, but it’s more about a distribution model of where the best places are to run AI for whatever your resources are. So that’s really helpful. Any specific examples of, I hate to put you on the spot, any use cases or examples that sort of like customer zero type use cases that come to mind?
Jon Siegal: Well, just in general, I would just say AI PCs provides so many great capabilities. I think you and I have actually talked about this a bit in the past, and these are just much better PCs. So right off the bat, I mean these things are, they’re sleek, they’re high performance, they’re energy efficient. The battery life is unbelievable, 24 hours if not more. I mean, we’re talking full day battery life. So there’s so many great, first of all, capabilities of these PCs. Not to mention it can always also support AI workloads as you’ve mentioned. Some of the early use cases and ideas we’re starting to see are, for example, we’ve provided AI PCs, we’ve armed them to Deloitte. Deloitte has armed all their developers with AI PCs from Dell. And one of the benefits there that they found right off the bat was that they don’t need to be connected to the internet, that their developers could be just as efficient without access there.
If you take that in a step further, and I start to think about what we can do to help, not just companies, but society in general, think of Doctors Without Borders. If they can take an AI PC and help someone in need in a Third World country, and let’s say that other person that they’re helping doesn’t speak the same language, translation on the spot, using an AI PC is incredible. It’s really fast, really efficient. You don’t need access to the cloud. So this can really solve a lot of use cases, a lot of things that maybe we haven’t even thought of. And that’s what I think was so exciting about AI, PCs and AI in general, is that I think it’s less about doing things more productive. I mean, that is nice and certainly we’ll see that. We’re already seeing that, 30, 40, 50% of productivity depending on your study, but I think it’s about doing things that we can never do before.
And that’s what, to me, is most exciting. And so that’s an example of a use case there. And then running RAG models locally is also very, very… Offline RAG models on your own data is also something that I think is going to become a personal productivity assistant for users around the world. And imagine taking AI, the power of AI with your own data. It really doesn’t do much if it doesn’t know you, it doesn’t know your data. But when you apply the two together, that’s where big things are going to happen. So I think that to me, that’s most exciting.
Olivier Blanchard: I like it. Actually, I like that you’re not just focused on the productivity thing. Sometimes you’re not going to be in an area where you have dependable connectivity or where you want to connect at all. And it’s nice to be able to have that independence. Switching gears, my last question, Windows 10 is saying goodbye. Support is ending in October next year, right? So how-
Jon Siegal: October 2025 in case. Depending on when this airs.
Olivier Blanchard: Yes. October of this year.
Jon Siegal: Just want to be clear, it is urgent.
Olivier Blanchard: October 2025. Sorry. So you’re right. So what is Dell specifically doing to help customers transition with AI PCs, but with some of the solutions that we’ve talked about and some other ones that maybe we haven’t talked about?
Jon Siegal: Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, we’re helping them understand what the implications are with certainly with our existing customers and just taking them through it. So we’re spending a lot of time now with them so they can understand what are the implications of not getting any more security updates, what are the implications of having outdated PCs that, for example, they might end up getting much more help to help desk tickets, support becomes more expensive. So we’re helping them through understanding the implications of this. And it’s pretty urgent. And Microsoft really just doubled down once again on the October 15th date to be really precise of 2025. And so we’re just really helping them understand what the implications are and how to actually get there. The migration path to Windows 11, the good news is it’s more seamless than other previous migrations from one generation to the next.
And so we’re already seeing really good promise here. We’ve already transitioned some, but we still want to transition a lot more of our existing customers. And what we’re finding is that we’re able to transition them much more seamlessly, 20, 30% faster than we were in the last generation. And then on top of that, we have the most secure, the most manageable PCs on top of that. So we’re giving them the assurance, the confidence that they’re investing in the right vendor. And then because this is happening at the same time that AI PCs are emerging and the use cases are coming, we’re also trying to help them understand why AI PC is the right answer.
So that if they invest now they have that investment protection so they can take full advantage going forward. The last thing you want to do is not being prepared. An analogy that sometimes use, would you ever run a marathon? I ran the Boston Marathon earlier this year. I don’t think I would’ve run it in flip-flops. That would be really tough. Why not take advantage of having the best… You could do it by the way, you could run the marathon with flip-flops technically. Really painful. You’d be slow, get a lot of blisters. Why not take advantage of having the latest and greatest running shoes or at least decent ones? And that’s why I kind of see the difference between non-AI PCs and AI PCs is that at the end of the day, why not take full advantage? AI is of course the marathon in this analogy, and I think it’s coming. We know it’s coming, and we just want to make sure they’re well-prepared for it.
Olivier Blanchard: Right. That’s really good. And the new nomenclature, the way that you’ve rearranged the grid of a-
Jon Siegal: Brand.
Olivier Blanchard: Of the brand. Yeah, I think it’s going to be really helpful as you’re transitioning into AI as they’re transitioning into AI PCs as well.
Jon Siegal: That’s right.
Olivier Blanchard: It is basically a full reset of the category,
Jon Siegal: Yeah, yeah. Look, you’re talking about our simplification, if you will, from a branding perspective. And that came from lots of conversations and studies, detailed studies with thousands of customers and partners through all segments and listening to them and understanding what was working and what wasn’t. And what we found more than anything else is what they cared about was the Dell brand. And what they wanted more than else is to be able to find the perfect device for them as simply as possible. And so that’s what we’ve tried to do is make it much simpler for them. So we’re excited about that and we know we will be taking a lot of our existing customers through that journey. A lot of those that haven’t shopped with Dell, I think they’re going to find it really easy to work with us.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah, I think so. All right, cool. That’s all the time we have for. So Jon, thanks a lot for answering my questions. I’m Olivier Blanchard for The Futurum Group. Join us again on our next video and set of interviews. And until then, have a great day.
Author Information
Olivier Blanchard has extensive experience managing product innovation, technology adoption, digital integration, and change management for industry leaders in the B2B, B2C, B2G sectors, and the IT channel. His passion is helping decision-makers and their organizations understand the many risks and opportunities of technology-driven disruption, and leverage innovation to build stronger, better, more competitive companies.
