Analyst(s): Olivier Blanchard
Publication Date: May 20, 2025
AI-enabled Chromebooks, dubbed Chromebook Plus devices, are gearing up to not only reset expectations for the Chromebook’s viability in the enterprise, but also help drive enterprise adoption of Google’s broader productivity ecosystem, according to Futurum. If Google is successful in capturing more enterprise PC market share thanks to its robust AI-enabled solutions portfolio, it could bring further disruption in the enterprise PC market.
Key Points:
While the Windows PC ecosystem has, thus far, led the charge on advancing the performance and user experience framework for AI PCs – most recently with the introduction of the Copilot+ PC category in the notebook segment – other PC platforms and operating systems are also entering the AI PC space, most notably Apple (MacBooks, iMac, and Apple Intelligence) and Google (Chromebook Plus, Gemini, Google Chrome Enterprise).
The diversity of silicon, platforms, form factors, and system configurations expands the choices for enterprise and SMB (small and medium-sized business) buyers also expands. With more choices comes more complexity and more opportunity for challengers within the PC ecosystem to disrupt the status quo and capture market share. Chromebook’s new AI-forward offering, particularly with native Gemini and Chrome browser integration, is well-poised to take another crack at the commercial segment.
With competitive hardware specs, natural integrations with Google productivity, G-Mail, Chrome, and Gemini solutions, a more robust enterprise-security framework, and well-adapted device management tools for IT departments, AI-enabled chromebooks look like a much more credible AI PC option for enterprises than they did even a year ago. This was because AI-enhanced productivity, security, battery life, and cost considerations continue to drive the PC refresh cycle.
Overview:
Why the Chromebook Plus AI PC Category Matters
Chromebook shipments experienced a surge surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 (reaching an estimated 37 million units in 2021). Still, they suffered a significant decline in the surge’s immediate aftermath, with fewer than 30 million units shipped in 2022. In some ways, Chromebook’s surge-to-slump cycle mirrors the pandemic’s impact on PCs as a whole, with bloated inventories and slow digestion post-surge taking the wind out of the segment’s sails.
But, like the overall PC segment, a combination of the return to healthy inventory digestion and innovative on-device AI advancements is setting up the chromebook category for not only a market comeback in 2025, but a reset of the category’s role in the PC ecosystem as a whole, particularly in the commercial segment. With its new AI-enabled Chromebook Plus category, Google is setting up Chromebooks as a low-cost, no-nonsense alternative to Windows 11 AI PCs and Apple’s “Apple Intelligence”-compatible MacBooks.
What is important to note here is that Chromebook’s play for now isn’t to capture significant market share from incumbent Windows systems in the commercial segment. All Google needs to do, at least in the current PC refresh window, is to reframe Chromebook as an alternative to these incumbent platforms, particularly for specific use cases and user personas. In short, Google needs to change the narrative about Chromebook among IT professionals, and make a case for why, like Arm-based Windows PCs, Chromebooks have a role to play in a business’ PC ecosystem.
Figure 1: Enterprise Spend Posture Regarding PC Refresh Cycle: Next 12 Months
How can the Chromebook Plus Category Deliver Unique Value to the Enterprise?
The simplest way to begin understanding how Chromebook Plus devices deliver a unique value proposition to enterprise environments is to highlight how they differ from standard Chromebooks:
- Performance: Chromebook Plus devices typically offer 2x the processing power, memory, and storage compared to standard Chromebooks to ensure smooth multitasking across numerous browser tabs and demanding web applications.
- AI-Powered Productivity: Features such as “Help me write” (for drafting emails, reports, web copy), “Help me read” (for summarizing long documents or articles), and Gemini integration can significantly boost their efficiency directly within their workflow.
- Enhanced Collaboration: AI-powered video conferencing tools (better lighting, noise cancellation, generative AI backgrounds, Live Translate) improve the experience in Google Meet, Zoom, etc. Screencast features facilitate easy creation and sharing of demos or training.
- Seamless Cloud Integration: Native integration with Google Workspace and streamlined access to Microsoft 365 web apps (with improved Progressive Web App experiences and OneDrive integration) fit their cloud-first approach.
- Security & Manageability: IT departments benefit from ChromeOS’s inherent security, easy cloud-based management via Google Admin Console, and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
The Chromebook ecosystem has also been consistently rolling out new enterprise-specific features designed to solve critical challenges for IT departments: These center around device management, enhanced security, streamlined application deployment, and insightful (AI-enhanced) reporting.
Additionally, one of the more interesting insights uncovered by our latest ITDM survey was that, when it comes to AI PCs specifically, 37% of enterprise ITDMs indicated a tendency to make decisions about PC specs and configuration choice based on specific use cases. While this group only constitutes 1 of every 3 organizations, it suggests that silicon diversity, different system configurations, and unique features can not only influence PC purchasing decisions, but potentially shift IT buyers from one type of PC to another. This could represent a window of opportunity for Chromebook Plus: As 1 in 3 ITDM reports that their choice of PC is primarily use-case dependent, specific use cases (and user personas) could give Chromebook an advantage over Windows 11 AI PCs and Copilot+ PCs. Given Google’s progress in addressing friction points for enterprise IT in the past 18 months, and the speed at which Chromebook specs are beginning to catch up to the Copilot+ PC ecosystem, that window of opportunity may well start to expand in H2 2025.
The types of use cases and user personas most likely to be ideal targets for Chromebook Plus adoption are cloud-native information workers, frontline field workers, call-center and customer service agents, and remote workers.
Read the full report “Why Google’s Chromebook Plus Strategy May Turn into a Case Study in Quiet Disruption,” available via Futurum Intelligence’s AI Devices IQ service subscription—click here for inquiry and access.
Futurum clients can read more in the AI Devices Intelligence Platform, and non-clients can learn more here: AI Devices Intelligence Practice.
About the Futurum AI Devices Practice
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Author Information
Research Director Olivier Blanchard covers edge semiconductors and intelligent AI-capable devices for Futurum. In addition to having co-authored several books about digital transformation and AI with Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman, Blanchard brings considerable experience demystifying new and emerging technologies, advising clients on how best to future-proof their organizations, and helping maximize the positive impacts of technology disruption while mitigating their potentially negative effects. Follow his extended analysis on X and LinkedIn.
