Organizations Upgrade End-User Devices to Prepare for GenAI’s Advance

Organizations across a wide spectrum of industries are taking steps to upgrade end-user devices to prepare for the rapid advance of generative AI (GenAI). The advance is already well underway, according to new MeriTalk research conducted in partnership with Dell Technologies and Intel.

GenAI is redefining workloads, moving from instruction-driven workflows that result in computational outputs to intention-driven workflows that create a more cognitive response with context and reasoning. The convergence of powerful AI accelerators, high-speed AI fabrics, and high-speed AI storage in GenAI unlocks a new level of knowledge generation. It also means compute requirements for AI are skyrocketing – and new computing architectures are urgently needed to support this demand.

At this year’s Dell Technologies World, Jeff Clarke, vice president and chief operating officer at Dell Technologies, predicted, “By 2030, the entire PC install base will have been refreshed with 2 billion AI PCs, making the world’s most useful productivity device even more powerful and more capable as we exit the decade.”

In the short term, IT decision-makers surveyed by MeriTalk said they expect sharp increases in GenAI use for data analysis and business intelligence, cybersecurity, and customer service in 2025. In return, they anticipate benefits including faster analysis and insights generation, customer service efficiency, and productivity gains.

The survey canvassed 300 IT decision-makers familiar with their organization’s GenAI plans to assess end-user device readiness, identify challenges, and highlight early lessons learned in the era of GenAI.

Pressure to move quickly with Gen AI is real, the survey found. More than 80 percent of IT decision-makers said they fear that their organization will fall behind their competition if they do not embrace GenAI. Accordingly, 60 percent said GenAI will be a major factor in their end-user device upgrades going forward.

More than half of IT leaders surveyed said they are preparing end-user devices for GenAI by updating operating systems and software, along with enhancing security. About 40 percent are upgrading to scalable GPU and/or CPU processing options or adding precision-ready AI workstations.

As of now, however, just 26 percent of respondents said their devices are fully prepared to support their organization’s GenAI goals. And 56 percent identified a growing gap between their organization’s GenAI adoption and their ability to upgrade end-user devices to support it.

Refresh cycles provide the opportunity to modernize devices for GenAI, and many organizations are adopting strategies such as PC-as-a-Service, which shifts employee device purchasing from a one-time fixed cost to a continuous expenditure, improving the employee experience while offering budget, hiring, and project flexibility to the IT organization.

Dell Technologies helps organizations prioritize performance and efficiency with GenAI as they move from traditional refresh cycles based on equipment age to refreshes that include adaptable equipment that can integrate new functionalities, modular infrastructure that can support evolving data and processing needs, automation and orchestration tools that streamline security processes and improve response times, and subscription and managed services options to reduce upfront costs and improve time to value.

For more insights, review the research.