Intel admits Lunar Lake-powered AI PCs see weak sales vs older Raptor Lake mobile laptops
Since the introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022, which ushered in a new AI race, companies both big and small have been trying to leverage the "AI" buzzword whenever they can. Microsoft also jumped on the bandwagon to try and market Windows laptops using the AI strategy. The company introduced the “CoPilot+ PC” program last year to certify Windows laptops that meet a minimum threshold of machine learning performance.
Naturally, Intel and AMD, the two major Windows PC chip makers, have been making “AI PC” chips for laptops.
For Intel, the “AI PC” trend started with the Core Ultra 100 Meteor Lake APUs in 2023, which the company followed with the Core Ultra 200 Lunar Lake APUs last year. AMD went a step further in marketing and added “AI” in the name of their latest mobile APUs.
However, it now seems that chasing the AI PC hype train hasn’t worked out well for Intel. Team Blue has revealed that consumers prefer older Raptor Lake mobile laptops to newer Meteor Lake/Lunar Lake machines.
In its latest Q1 2025 earnings calls, Intel reports that, due to increased demand for older Raptor Lake and Alder Lake laptop systems, the company is facing a shortage of Intel 7 process capacity. The key reason for this uptick in demand for Raptor Lake laptops over Core Ultra 100 Meteor Lake and Core Ultra 200 Lunar Lake systems is the lower cost of the 13th-gen Raptor Lake systems. The company explains that laptop OEMs are “hedging their bets” in response to “macroeconomic concerns and tariffs”.
Cost considerations aside, we’d be remiss not to ask whether the Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake laptops have been properly marketed to consumers. Over the past two years, we have seen Intel and AMD position their products as ready for the AI age with bigger NPUs and more capable iGPUs. It can be argued that, in the absence of any eye-catching use cases, this whole AI PC narrative has fallen apart.
As Hardware Canucks mentioned on X, things could have been different if the latest Intel and AMD processors had been marketed around their actual strengths. For instance, laptops with Intel Lunar Lake APUs like the latest Vivobook S 14 can finally boast battery life on par with Apple MacBooks.
Moreover, with the latest Arc and Radeon iGPUs, you can also play modern games on thin and light machines. These are quite impactful selling points that we haven’t seen Intel/AMD and Microsoft leverage as much as the AI PC buzzword.
AMD’s earnings call is next, and, as Tom’s Hardware points out, it will be interesting to see if the Ryzen AI-based laptops are following Intel's trajectory or doing better vs AMD’s older generation chips.
Source(s)
Tom's Hardware, Hardware Canucks on X, Teaser image: Asus, Nicolas Lysandro on Unsplash, edited
