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If one thing was clear from the Intel Pro Day 2026, which I attended in New York this week, it’s that it believes in AI. In particular, that we are in the middle of an inevitable shift from cloud AI to local AI.
And Intel believes – of course – that it is in prime position to take advantage of this shift through its 2026 tranche of commercial laptops powered by Core Ultra 300 Series processors with Intel vPro technology.
There’s certainly no shortage of backing from the PC manufacturers, with over 125 products being announced on the day.
“AI is evolving at an unprecedented pace,” said David Feng, VP/GM of Intel’s PC Client Segments, at the Intel Pro Day event. “From an AI PC perspective, we began with collaboration tools that help the users communicate and work more effectively. That quickly expanded into generative AI, enabling on-demand content creation.”
I would question how many users are currently creating anything using the local AI power of their commercial laptops, but I’ll let that pass as the more important point is to come.
“Today, we’re entering the era of agentic AI, where systems deliver outcomes through reasoning, planning and autonomous actions on behalf of the users,” said Feng. “Looking ahead, we believe the future is hybrid AI with intelligence distributed across the device and the cloud. This approach delivers the right capabilities with a balance of performance, privacy and cost.”
There are signs of this. The day after seeing Intel I attended an HP Imagine 2026 event where it announced its HP IQ solution. This uses a 20-billion parameter model stored on users’ devices, allowing them to ask about locally held information whilst sticking to corporate policy on data security.
“Devices are going to get smarter, they’re going to have more context,” said Fent. “They’re going to use AI to really help you do your work. And we see that across all of our portfolio today.”
We covered the launch of the Core Ultra Series 3 Processors in January, but Intel provided a handy quartet of claims that might help business buyers. Compared to four-year-old systems, it says, new users can expect:
Those claims are based on the performance of a new laptop with a Core Ultra 7 365 chip and 16GB of memory versus a similar system with a Core i7-1265U processor and 32GB of memory.
Intel’s figures match my own testing, and it’s worth noting that the Core Ultra 7 365 is a comparatively modest member of the Core Ultra 300 family. If Intel had chosen a Core Ultra 7 358H then the differences would have been much greater.
In addition to the power that stems from the Core Ultra 300 Series processors, Intel announced the “biggest upgrade [to vPro] so far”, according to Jen Larson, who heads up the program for Intel.
Based on feedback from “partners around the globe”, she said, “we have completely reimagined the way that we look at vPro. Obviously, security and manageability are table stakes for us… The two new pillars that we have are vPro Optimised… and then vPro Intelligence is an entirely new pillar.”
We will cover what’s new about these in more detail in a separate article. However, one of the key ideas behind vPro Optimised is that Intel is working with software and hardware manufacturers to gain “vPro Certified” status. For example, this will guarantee easy connectivity for hardware and greater power efficiency for apps.
The vPro Intelligence pillar – Intel vPro Intelligence with Device IQ to give it its full name – will use AI to help diagnose issues. For instance, in the video below you will see how its updated Battery Life Diagnostic Tool can help IT teams keep vPro laptops running at their peak.
Intel says that commercial PCs with Core Ultra Series 3 processors and Intel vPro will be available from 31 March.
