As the second wave of AI PCs has hit the market, two things are immediately clear. One, the ecosystem players are looking at neural processing units (NPUs) as the next big thing in compute, and not just a gimmick. Second, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are still aiming to create a brand identity around AI PC.
The former observation is understandable given the massive rise of the artificial intelligence (AI) space in the last year. According to data from Precedence Research, the global AI market grew from $638.23 billion in 2023-24 to $757.58 billion in 2024-25, expanding at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18.72 percent.
HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14
The second observation, however, is more intriguing. Since AI PC is a relatively new space and OEMs lack expertise in software development, most have not found practical ways to offer tools that enables users to experience this technology. However, if a brand has to stand out in the AI PC space, it must find ways to offer unique AI-focused features that are not present in their competitors’ devices.
HP, which recently released its OmniBook, EliteBook, and ProBook series, is focusing on this exact problem, and has a unique way to solve it. The company’s AI PCs are equipped with three different tools — the HP AI Companion, the myHP app, and the Poly Studio web camera. And for the last couple of weeks, I have been testing out these features to understand whether they add value to the lives of an average user or not.
The HP AI Companion
The California-based computer brand has added an AI-powered on-device chatbot in all of its AI PCs, dubbed HP AI Companion. It serves as a personal assistant, a document analysis tool, and a conversational way to control some of the device settings.
HP says the AI Companion is powered by a version of GPT-4 which operates entirely locally, meaning any data shared with the chatbot never leaves the device. It is powered by the on-device NPU, and is integrated with both the system as well as all the files stored on it.
Discover in HP AI Companion
There are three interfaces to the AI Companion — Discover, Analyse, and Perform. Discover is for those who are new to AI chatbots and want to explore the technology. Here, users can ask the AI any general queries, as well as assign any generative tasks such as writing a blog or an essay. One thing to note here is that since the chatbot is not connected to the Internet, it might not be able to answer questions about real-time events. The Discover panel is also the place where HP provides a newsfeed of summarised topics users can use for inspiration.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the HP AI Companion is the Analyse function. Users can upload any document or file, and the tool can quickly summarise the content. It can also access files stored in the user’s private Azure drive. In my brief usage, I was able to get it to summarise research papers and large documents accurately. It also adds citations so users can be redirected to the source in the document and get in-depth knowledge.
Analyse in HP AI Companion
What makes Analyse stand out is that it offers the text summarisation capability directly on-device and for free. Users can also compare documents, highlight key points, and even filter specific data. Those who care about both frugality and data privacy, the combination is hard to find unless you own one of the expensive AI-enabled smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S25 series.
Apart from this, the HP AI Companion also comes with the Perform interface, which is a conversational interface to access system settings. For instance, if you’re already working on AI Companion, and suddenly fight the display brightness to be inadequate, you can go to the Perform page and tell it to “increase brightness by 70 percent,” and it will. Some other settings users can control using the interface include Accessories, Audio, Camera, Display, and Gestures.
Perform in HP AI Companion
But that’s not all. The interface also lets users maintain system drivers, BIOS, and firmware – all of which can be updated right from one screen. Perform can also show troubleshooting information from HP support to help users configure settings. HP claims that the AI also learns from user behaviour and can adjust the optimal configuration based on what the user is doing.
Overall, the chatbot is a comprehensive offering from HP that will be useful for both those new to the AI technology and those experienced with it.
myHP
In 2020, the PC brand first introduced myHP as a central hub for devices. The company recently refreshed the app and added AI capabilities to it. It is designed as a customisation platform that lets users tweak different features of the device to their preference. The home page of myHP shows various tools and settings that can be accessed, such as Audio, Video, Display, Touchpad, Presence Sensing, Gestures, and more.
myHP home page
Each of these settings lets you quickly access the controls to tweak various customisation settings. For instance, in the System Control tab, users can enable the Performance mode of the laptop and select from a wide range of options.
In the presence sensing tab, they can adjust various options for when the device turns the screen off. For instance, users can specify how far the user is from the device and for how long before the display turns off. Similar options are available to wake the device or dim the brightness. These options are aimed at letting users select the exact configuration that they desire.
myHP System Controls
The AI integration comes into play as the user spends more time with the device and adjusts different settings for different usage. The AI records the patterns and then automatically adjusts the settings based on user behaviour.
myHP Presence Sensing
While the idea behind the myHP app is great, I feel that duplication of settings is not necessarily a requirement for most users. However, for those who want a handy one-stop shop for all their customisation controls, this could be a game-changer.
Poly Camera Pro
Finally, HP has also made some AI-based changes to its Poly Camera Pro app. It is the company’s in-house web camera app, which also connects to different video conferencing platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Google Meet.
In 2022, HP acquired Poly for $3.3 billion. In the following years, the company launched the Poly Camera Pro, a web camera app that offers multiple customisation features. Take the background control, for example. It offers several modes, such as portrait, spotlight, and green screen, which automatically track the subject to add the desired effect to the screen.
HP’s Poly Camera Pro features
The framing tool also allows users to adjust the camera to various video streaming platforms, be it vertical or horizontal, all while ensuring that the subject is centred. There are also several built-in templates that users can add to avoid the generic on-camera/off-camera appearance. Templates can also be created to allow users to design the perfect video look for themselves.
In my brief experience with the Poly Camera Pro, I found the customisation options aplenty and useful. Since the customisations also appear on third-party video conferencing apps as well, it is a convenient way to ensure your appearance remains constant in all meetings.
If you are new to the idea of AI-powered personal computers, then HP’s AI PCs are a great starting point to understand what this technology can do for you. Since all of these AI-powered tools run locally on the device, you do not have to worry about data privacy issues, and can slowly accustom yourself with the AI assistant that can answer your basic queries, analyse and summarise your documents, help you customise your device to new heights, and allow you to look at your sharpest in every meeting.
And if you’re an experienced AI user, you can always explore GitHub and Hugging Face for your favourite open-source AI model and run them locally on your device with the built-in NPU.
