Dell Bets Big on AI PCs at CES 2025 | Meet Dell's New AI PC Portfolio: Engineered with Simplicity & Packed with Innovation

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Kevin Terwilliger

VP & GM of Commercial, Consumer, & Gaming PCs

Dell Technologies

Three insights you may have missed from the Dell Bets Big on API PCs at CES event

AI PCs are transforming how people interact with technology, introducing smarter, more intuitive solutions that enhance daily life. Dell Technologies Inc. stands at the helm of this movement, driving innovations that blend accessibility, productivity and wellness into cutting-edge designs.This shift comes as both businesses and consumers prioritize the simplified integration of artificial intelligence into devices and workflows. This focus defines Dell’s approach, according to theCUBE Research’s Savannah Peterson.TheCUBE Research’s Savannah Peterson discusses Dell’s AI PC strategy

Streamlining AI outcomes: Dell’s vision for accelerated enterprise success

Dell Technologies Inc. is redefining simplicity and performance in the AI PC market. From streamlining product categories to introducing groundbreaking tools, such as the Dell Pro AI Studio, the company is setting the stage for a new era of accessible and future-ready computing, according to Kevin Terwilliger (pictured), vice president and general manager of commercial, consumer and gaming PCs at Dell.To enhance AI use cases, Dell Pro AI Studio helps organizations tame the challenge of finding and applying the right large language models, Terwilliger added.Dell’s Kevin Terwilliger talks to theCUBE about what Dell Pro AI Studio has to offer

play_circle_outline Dell's Simplification Strategy: Introducing Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Max Series for Easy Decision-Making

play_circle_outline Three main categories: Dell, Dell Pro, Dell Pro Max for different use cases

play_circle_outline Unlocking the Power of AI: Dell Pro AI Studio Boosts Enterprise Models with Semantic Search

play_circle_outline Dell Pro AI Studio: Revolutionizing Model Training and Semantic Search for Corporate PCs

play_circle_outline Dell's focus on accelerating AI outcomes for customers at Dell Tech World in May.

play_circle_outline Future focus on demonstrating AI outcomes and specific customer examples at Dell Tech World

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Meet Dell's New AI PC Portfolio: Engineered with Simplicity & Packed with Innovation

Kevin Terwilliger

VP & GM of Commercial, Consumer, & Gaming PCs Dell Technologies

Dell has recently announced changes to their branding strategy, categorizing their products into Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max. This simplification aims to help customers choose the right PC and accessories. One notable development is Copilot Plus, with features like semantic search for easier file retrieval. Dell also introduced the Dell Pro AI Studio to assist companies with AI model integration. Sustainability is a focus, with recommendations to invest in larger NPUs and memory for longevity. Dell is working on showcasing customer examples to demonstrat... Read more

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What are the three categories that the company has simplified their product portfolio into? add

What are the three simple categories that Dell has put their devices into? add

What are some of the new capabilities being introduced in Microsoft's Copilot Plus and how will they benefit users, particularly in terms of semantic search and the application of large language models in corporations? add

What are some of the capabilities that Microsoft is adding to Copilot Plus and how can semantic search benefit users when searching for files on their PC? add

What can be expected from Dell Tech World in terms of showcasing Dell Pro AI Studio and how it enables customers to achieve outcomes in just six weeks? add

What can we expect to see from Dell at Dell Tech World in terms of AI capabilities and customer examples? add

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Meet Dell's New AI PC Portfolio: Engineered with Simplicity & Packed with Innovation

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Savannah Peterson

>> Welcome back to theCUBE's special coverage of Dell's 2025 CES preview. My name is Savannah Peterson, so excited for this next segment, one of the key minds behind a lot of the big changes today. Kevin, thank you so much for coming to kick it with me.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> Yes, thanks for having me.

Savannah Peterson

>> Before we get into the details, I just have to point out our details. We've both got Dell Blue Nikes on here.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> We just noticed it when we sat down.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yours are a little more the AI factory tone of blue. I've got kind of the traditional logo blue over here.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> A little more throwback Dell logo.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah, exactly. Just what excellent taste you have. Speaking of being on brand, big changes for the Dell branding today. Very exciting announcements on the simplification front. I'm sure there's been a lot of conversation about that, but for folks just learning about the Dell, Dell Pro and Dell Max series, give us the highlights of the logic chain there.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> Absolutely, and I would even take a step back. It really starts with branding strategy following product strategy, and if we go back two and a half years, we embarked on trying to redefine our product portfolio and de-dupe it. And what we found was there were lots of parts of our portfolio where we had overlapping products that creates immense confusion for the customer. Deloitte actually has a study that shows that 74% of consumers actually stopped in the purchase path of technology because they got confused. And we've all had that experience and overwhelmed.

Savannah Peterson

>> It's that three things. We can't handle more than three things, so I'm not surprised you put it in three categories.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> It's a little bit like walking down the cereal aisle in the grocery store.

Savannah Peterson

>> Exactly.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> It's like overload. So we've taken a step back and we've put it into three simple categories. Those simple categories are Dell, which is a very known brand that is for play and school and work, very diverse in its use cases. Then we add the pro moniker specifically for professional grade. And so this is really meant for those customers who intend to use that device eight or 10 hours a day. They expect to be able to go on the road with it and be able to connect it in any conference room, be able to have all of that in a great sleek device. That's our pro category. Then for people who have the use case of maximum performance, they know where to go in Dell Pro Max, and so we built out those categories. And then the other thing we've done is also created simple tiers so that instead of having, actually today we have 12 different tier names across our portfolio. We have different tier structures in our peripherals, in our displays, in our PC.

Savannah Peterson

>> It's a couple skews.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> That's a lot of skews. What we want to do is make it easy for our customer to find the right PC, but then also find the right peripheral, the right headset, the right display, and even the right services and support. Now, all of that is in this consistent tier. So we have a base tier, that's the starting point for really essential productivity. We step up into a plus tier, which is our most scalable performance upgrade, and then finally a premium tier, which is the ultimate in design and mobility, and we carry that consistently across all of our products.

Savannah Peterson

>> So it's a benefit for the consumer and their decision-making, especially since, I mean the numbers thrown out at the keynote earlier today, 1.5 billion devices ripe to be replaced. You want it to be simple for your customers.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> It has to be simple. As we go through this refresh, it's critical that we help those customers find the right device because if there's a lot of confusion in trying to understand the brands, understand the tiers, when we get down to the device, there's a lot of choices they need to make about the silicon options. They make decisions about the NPU and whether or not they want Copilot Plus. We want them focused in on more of those use case decisions and not distract with the sub brand structure or the tiering.

Savannah Peterson

>> Absolutely. I think that's critical. I think it's great that y'all did it. I know it's always a moment when there's a bit of a rebrand, and I love that you simplified it and went away from letters and digits to something that I think a lot of people can digest, particularly as they embark. I mean, AI PCs are so new, only 2% of the market right now. Greenfield opportunity in terms of what you're going to be able to achieve. What are some of the use cases on the customer side that get you really excited about seeing these AI PCs out in the wild computing and creating?

Kevin Terwilliger

>> Yeah. Well, I think one big one that we're seeing is Microsoft has started talking about some of the additional capabilities coming to Copilot Plus, and so that's pretty exciting when we think about... One I'm mostly excited about is called semantic search and this whole idea that we don't think in file structures, so why do we have to search our PC in a file structure? I have no idea what I named that PowerPoint. I have no idea what slide it is on or what revision. Now I can just type in natural language. I'm looking for this image and it goes and finds that exact slide. I think that for me, will save me hours. I think that is going to be a light bulb moment for the customers when they're like, wow, that's what local AI does for me, because I know that I can't do that inferencing of all those files if that was in the cloud. That would be impossible. It has to be done locally. But I would actually say maybe even more exciting than that is all of the opportunities for corporations to use their data and their use cases and apply large language models specifically to those use cases. So Dell's very focused on helping those customers along. That's quite challenging today of finding the right models that'll run on an NPU, understanding the different silicon nuances. All of that is complicated, so we've actually developed what we call Dell Pro AI Studio specifically to help corporations find the right model, be able to train that model independent of the different silicon choices, but then also embed that model into their enterprise application and keep it updated while that model updates. Dell knows a lot about updating devices, drivers, bios, all that stuff, and so we've taken all that learning or helping IT organizations do that with these models targeted specific use cases in their corporation. So that's what I'm most excited about.

Savannah Peterson

>> I love it. I see the AI Studio. If the devices are the magic wand, the AI Studio is a bit of the fairy dust that is around that when you twinkle it. And it is going to be the glue that keeps the community loyal to Dell's AI hardware because you're not only thinking about the adaptability, the sustainability, the modular design of the physical device, but you're also making sure that the developers who are using them or whoever it might be, it might not be a traditional dev at this stage using an AI PC, are within an ecosystem that's also going to be able to grow and match that same simplified user experience like you're talking about going from the branding to the device all the way through the ecosystem.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> I think we're pretty unique in our ability to offer that to our customers. We're the only ones that are leading an AI in the data center, leading in AI with the largest share of AI PCs, so it's up to us to help those customers tie all that together and use these models to get to outcomes much faster.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah, absolutely, and I'll say as an analyst, you are leading that, so I'll go ahead and give you that recognition.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> Glad to hear.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah. A couple more quick questions for you. When we're thinking about AI PCs, because there's so many different levels of knowledge and awareness right now. Those of us wonderful nerds here, we know what's going on in this space. We can understand the true value out of having an NPU in the unit and a different type of brain within your device, having that data on-prem and meeting it where it is. I'm curious for teams that might be listening right now, they could be an AI department, they could be someone in strategy who's trying to figure out how to plan for the next five years, not just their AI strategy for today, but these devices are meant to last as long as possible. They're durable, they're lightweight, the battery's consistent. There's a lot of things going on there. What do you wish more people understood? If you could wave that same magic wand right now and populate the community with information, what do you wish they knew about AI PCs that they might not?

Kevin Terwilliger

>> That's a great question. Well, I think the biggest thing we want them to be thoughtful about is for that PC to live for four years in their environment. It's very different than how workloads have changed in the past. You look at the past 10 years, 15 years, the PC workload has not changed dramatically. In the next four years, it's going to transform. And so the most important thing is for our customers to be thoughtful about creating headroom for the devices because we're also very focused on sustainability. We don't want them to have to rip and replace a device because they didn't plan ahead for the workload that's coming. So not only have we re-architected our devices to build more headroom based on the thermal design and been really thoughtful about enabling the system to handle those workloads, we also need our customers to think about buying the largest NPU they can with the budget they have, upgrading their memory because next to NPU, it's probably going to be memory bound. Making those investments today are going to mean that device can last their full life cycle.

Savannah Peterson

>> And keep up with the track and speed of innovation right now, which I think is a really big part of that even in the way our mind's working. Last question, because I know it's a very busy day for you. When we're hanging out at Dell Tech World in Vegas in May, what do you hope to be able to chat with me about then that you can't today?

Kevin Terwilliger

>> Ooh, that's a good one. I think the thing you're going to see from us at Dell Tech World is going to be this Dell Pro AI Studio actually translated into specific customer examples of how we enable them to get to outcomes in just six weeks, shifting away from all those nuances and all that complexity, and so I think the industry is waiting for demonstrating those outcomes. I will tell you, Dell has been customer zero. We've been using these toolkits. We've been moving models to run on top of NPUs, and we've done this for very specific use cases within Dell. Now, over the next couple of months, we have the right solution to help our customers do that. I'm excited for Dell Tech World to have specific examples that I can walk you through how we've accelerated these AI outcomes.

Savannah Peterson

>> Absolutely. Wow. I can't wait to tell those stories with you. Okay, sorry, one tiny maybe follow up to that real quick. You mentioned you've used it for very specific use cases in Dell. Can you share a couple of those?

Kevin Terwilliger

>> Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, we've been very focused on narrowing down to opportunities where we can augment people's workflow with AI. I'll give you a great example. One of these is around our tech support. So when we get a call in from a customer, they need help with the system, we actually have used a large language model to engage with that customer and give the next best action to the tech support agent. So, no longer are they reading through a bunch of content, they have a large language model that's actually predicting what the next best action is, and so that's a great example. Some of the other areas, we are using it around software code generation. We're using it around content generation for go-to-market. There's a couple of specific areas where Dell, obviously we want to be customer zero. We want to use the technology, and we've seen tremendous productivity gains in those use cases.

Savannah Peterson

>> Oh, I love to hear it and I cannot wait to tell more customer stories with you at Dell Tech World. Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time today.

Kevin Terwilliger

>> Thanks for having me,

Savannah Peterson

>> And thank all of you for tuning in to this fabulous special coverage of Dell's CES, the 2025 preview. I hope you're as inspired as I am. I hope you're thinking about your next pair of kicks, and I hope you tune into the rest of our coverage here and enjoy geeking out with all the gadgets. My name is Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leading source for enterprise tech news.