I'm thinking about buying a new high-spec Thinkpad, but all these AI features make me hesitant. Can anyone explain what 'AI' really entails in these laptops? Is it fundamentally part of the processor? And most importantly, if I don't want these features, can I disable them?
5 Answers
Yes, AI features are often just built into the CPUs, but they're mainly there for marketing. If you really don’t want them, just check your options. It's easy enough to disable them if you want!
Honestly, a lot of the 'AI' you see is just marketing speak. Most of these laptops have a basic Neural Processing Unit (NPU), but it's mainly optimized for things like Copilot. Many people don't even end up using the NPU—like I haven't even touched mine!
Totally agree. And honestly, the tools that use it are pretty limited right now.
If you're looking to disable AI features, you can find guides on how to turn off stuff like CoPilot and other AI-related features in Windows. It's not as daunting as it sounds!
I’ve had a laptop with an NPU for over a year, and I mainly just use it for a feature that fakes eye contact on video calls. It’s not as impressive as the marketing makes it sound—definitely a letdown considering all the hype!
Hate to break it to you, but right now, AI in PCs is pretty much all style, no substance. The actual benefits aren’t that meaningful for the average user.
Exactly! Even with a powerful discrete GPU, the NPU isn’t really that useful unless you don't have a GPU. I haven't found anything that actually utilizes it!