HP calls its latest computers AI PCs and equips them with the AI Companion. This companion still carries the beta label today, and rightly so. At the moment, the tool is cloud-bound and limited in functionality. What HP has in mind for the future does look interesting.
For a year and a half now, we’ve been hearing that the era of the AI PC has arrived. An AI PC is a computer with an NPU: a chiplet optimized for AI tasks. Computers are full of optimized accelerators, such as for multimedia and encryption. However, the multimedia PC or the encryption PC have never known their own era, but for AI, the marketing departments decided differently.
A truckload of so-called AI PCs have since passed in review, but they don’t do much AI that you couldn’t do with a ‘regular’ PC. What you consider AI today happens almost exclusively via the cloud and works just as well on your eight-year-old Chromebook.
Promise of Local AI
That should change soon. AI assistants will run locally, promise chip manufacturers, laptop builders, and software companies. This will be possible thanks to the famous NPU. Microsoft is contributing with Copilot, and computer manufacturers themselves are also tinkering with local AI solutions. HP delivers new devices with the HP AI Companion.
The HP AI Companion gets a clear Beta label, but is installed on new devices from the manufacturer such as the EliteBook Ultra G1q. There, you open the Companion by clicking on the prepared icon in the taskbar.
Completely Cloud-based
First and foremost, it’s noticeable that you need to log in with your HP account. Although the AI PC would usher in the era of local AI, you need an internet connection for the Companion. Without connectivity, the app doesn’t work.
It quickly becomes apparent that the AI Companion doesn’t use the NPU at all. “Because I operate via the cloud, I don’t directly use your device’s hardware components like an NPU,” the AI assistant says about this itself. “My capacity for processing information and delivering answers comes from data centers running AI systems.”
Rule-making
Not only is the HP AI Companion transparent about this, but so is HP itself. At the moment, the solution works almost entirely via the cloud, where GPT-4o drives the intelligence. However, this will change: HP wants to integrate local AI into the AI Companion and is looking at Microsoft’s Phi 3.5 model for this. In the US, this local functionality will be finalized with the next update of the AI Companion, but not in the EU.
On compatible PCs, users will get the choice: local or cloud. Interesting detail: even so-called Copilot+ AI PCs are not necessarily compatible with the AI Companion: you need 32 GB of RAM for that.
In Europe, according to our information, the problem has to do with regulations. The local AI functionality will, as mentioned, depend on a system’s hardware, and privacy rules play a role in detecting this. Because HP is targeting a professional audience with the AI Companion, which must correctly report on such matters, they are still working on the implementation. Ideally, the AI Companion would already work partly locally this summer, but by the end of 2025 or early 2026 at the latest, everything should be sorted out.
Three Pillars
In the meantime, with the HP AI Companion, you mainly get a front-end for ChatGPT. The tool is divided into three tabs:
- Discover
- Analyze
- Perform
Discover includes classic chatbot functionality. You can talk to GPT-4o in conversations that contain a maximum of eight follow-up questions. This implementation of the LLM has no access to the wider internet, so answers don’t take into account current information.
Chat with Your Documents
Analyze allows you to create libraries with your own documents and analyze them with AI. You can add up to 100 MB of documents. Word, PDF, PowerPoint, and text files are supported. Once the library is created, you can ask questions about the content.
During our test, we notice that libraries are best not to consist of too many files. We unsuccessfully try to add four years of ITdaily articles in Word format. Although they barely weigh 80 MB, it’s not possible to create the library.
Adding smaller collections of files does work. You can now ask questions about the content of the library. This is very useful when you add research reports or extensive presentations, for example.
This functionality also currently only works by virtue of the cloud. Those with a ChatGPT subscription can just as easily add documents and have them analyzed by GPT-4o. However, HP makes significantly better privacy promises. User data is not stored on the cloud servers. The computing power in the cloud processes a query and generates the answer without your data ending up on an HP server.
Adjusting settings in natural language
Perform is currently the least functional pillar. Although the AI Companion app is in Dutch, and we see examples of Dutch prompts, you must address the AI assistant behind the Perform tab in English, and even then the results are inconsistent.
HP suggests in its online guide that you can type the following search query: “My keyboard is not working. How do I fix this?” When you’ve typed that you can’t type, the AI will explain what you need to do to be able to type again.
We don’t find that example very helpful, so we’re trying it ourselves. “Set my volume to 50 percent” doesn’t work, but “Set the volume to 50%” does. You can also dim your screen or turn off the microphone this way. The added value doesn’t seem that great for these things, as the relevant buttons aren’t that hidden on your laptop or within Windows.
First-line IT
However, HP has big plans. Initially, the Perform assistant should effectively become a first line of help for IT problems. Conversations with companies show that such a local AI assistant with access to laptop functions would be able to solve ten to twenty percent of user queries without involving the IT helpdesk.
In a next phase, the assistant should then connect with other HP devices on the network. Users will be able to use natural language to ask, for example, to brighten the screen of the meeting room, use a central microphone on the table, or turn down a speaker. When non-technical users can simply say what they want, they will be able to get more out of such meeting rooms.
Unique HP
HP thinks it can make a unique distinction here between its AI Companion and other AI solutions. It all sounds interesting, but at the moment it’s nothing more than future music. Under the Perform tab, the AI Companion can do little more than adjust some basic functions when you ask the question in English.
The HP AI Companion Beta doesn’t amount to much at the moment. In principle, this is not a problem: HP clearly marks the solution as beta. As a portal to GPT-4o via the cloud, the tool already offers added value for users without a ChatGPT subscription.
Not-so-AI PC
The problem lies more with the AI PC marketing. HP has jumped on the hype bandwagon and is marketing its computers as AI PCs. Powered by AI Experiences, we read at startup. However, a year and a half after the introduction of the AI PC concept, it remains a dead letter. Only now is HP putting the AI Companion on its devices, and even now it still doesn’t make use of the much-touted NPU.
When the beta label disappears and the AI Companion matures, that NPU will probably finally get a clear purpose. The added value can then be significant. Only in the worst case, we may have to wait another entire laptop generation before it gets there. At this rate, the first PCs with NPU will be written off before the software that can make use of it is ready. It’s no wonder that HP at its Amplify event meanwhile wants to talk about things other than AI.