Report: Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 Are Microsoft’s First “AI PCs” Coming on March 21

Microsoft will reportedly announce the Surface Pro 10 and the Surface Laptop 6 as its first “AI PCs” later this month. According to Windows Central’s Zac Bowden, the company is planning to announce the two new Surface devices on March 21, and both of them will offer the choice between Intel Core Ultra CPUs and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite-based ARM chips.

The report says that Microsoft is planning to make Intel versions of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 available in April, with the ARM versions to follow in June. Both versions should offer all-day battery life and support new AI features that Microsoft is planning to roll out in Windows 11 version 24H2 later this fall.

According to the report, the new AI features that Microsoft is planning to launch on “AI PCs” later this year include a version of the Copilot that runs locally, real-time live captions and translations, AI-powered upscaling and frame rate smoothing for Windows games, and advanced Windows Studio effects. But that’s not all.

“According to my sources, AI Explorer is the blockbuster AI experience that will separate AI PCs from non-AI PCs,” Bowden explained. “It’s described as an “advanced Copilot” with a built-in history/timeline feature that turns everything you do on your computer into a searchable moment using natural language. It works across any app and allows users to search for previously opened conversations, documents, web pages, and images.”

Besides these new AI features that will be enabled later this year with the next annual Windows 11 update, Microsoft’s Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 are expected to introduce various hardware changes. The Surface Pro 10 will reportedly keep the same chassis but get a brighter OLED display with an anti-reflective coating. Other updates will include a new ultrawide front-facing camera and a built-in NFC reader.

The Surface Laptop 6, which will for the first time offer the choice between Intel and ARM CPUs, is expected to get more significant upgrades. The report mentions thinner display bezels with rounded corners and a new haptic touchpad. Microsoft should also slightly improve the port selection with two USB-C and one USB-A ports on the left side, with the Surface Connect port staying alone on the right side.

While Microsoft and other PC manufacturers have already been saying that 2024 would be the year of the “AI PC,” the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 won’t be the first devices to come with an integrated neural processing unit (NPU). Last year’s Surface Laptop Studio 2 also came with an AI chip from Intel, though this was before Microsoft made its big AI push with Copilot on Windows.

Beyond the AI hype, what will be interesting to see is the actual performance of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite-based processors. In a video posted by Qualcomm last week, the company’s Snapdragon X Elite trounced Intel’s Core Ultra 7 chip in an AI performance benchmark. However, what we really want to know is if Qualcomm’s latest ARM chips for PCs will finally make Windows on ARM a no-compromises experience.