Rising to the TOPS: How will NPUs and Windows AI grow in 2025? [Video]

2024 has been a big year for on-device AI in consumer electronics. Both Microsoft and Apple took swings with their respective operating systems, with Microsoft debuting its “Copilot+ PC” branding for AI-capable laptops and Apple releasing Apple Intelligence.

These early examples offered mixed results. Some features, like real-time translations and on-device speech-to-text, can be useful. Others, like Microsoft’s Windows Recall, have yet to prove themselves.

All of this hype for AI has important implications for the new year. 2025 looks set to become the year when mainstream developers make their attempts to add on-device AI to their Windows apps, and that means you’re going to want to pay even closer attention to the AI performance of modern Windows laptops before you buy a new one.

I spoke with two experts in AI research and testing to probe their brains for insights on how Windows on-device AI will grow in 2025.

If you’re curious about Windows laptops’ AI performance, you’ll likely end up comparing the “TOPS” promised by …