70% of devices to be AI-native by 2026: Lenovo

Push for AI in devices: Lenovo is looking at AI-ready inventory to drive intelligent transformation across industry, with about 60 to 70 per cent of its devices to be AI-native by 2026.

Senior executives of the global technology company at the annual Tech World India 2024 said India is larger than Japan in terms of the total addressable market, with the market size having gone up from 4 million to over 6.5 million.

Luca Rossi, President and EVP at Intelligent Devices Group (IDG), Lenovo said,“In the next two to three years, 70 per cent of the devices will be AI-native. I think there is a huge opportunity in the consumer space, but initially, it will be in the premium space. Then you will see that these AI capabilities will flow into rest of our product roadmap.

Other leaders of the company addressing the select media briefing in Delhi as part of the event included Matthew Zielinski, EVP and President of International Markets, Vlad Rozanovich, SVP and President of ISG, Amar Babu, President- Asia Pacific, and Shailendra Katyal, Managing Director, Lenovo India.

Rossi said “productivity will be name of game” in the first phase of AI, with over 100 ISV (Independent Software Vendor) designed to run AI workloads. 

The company unveiled a range of AI-powered devices under its AI for All theme, such as Yoga Slim 7i, Yoga Pro 9i, IdeaPad Slim 5i, and ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Lenovo also said it will not charge consumers for AI capabilities and features in the device, contrary to Amazon and Samsung mulling a fee or subscription for AI capabilities in Galaxy AI and Alexa respectively.  

Lenovo also unveiled its Made in India devices. This comes after the government's push for Indian-manufactured laptops. This milestone positions Lenovo in the Class 1 PMA category, as more than 50 per cent of components for a specific range of products are now sourced through local manufacturing.

Lenovo India managing director Shailendra Katyal said that the Indian market has an upside on the back of low household penetration of PCs, ranging around 10-12 per cent currently but expected to increase exponentially due to customers looking to replace older devices such as PCs with AI-powered ones.

“Specific to India, pre-covid, the Indian market was worth 10 million outside of large deals. It is now trending at 14 million, which went up to 16 million during the pandemic which was an artificial blip. But even after the artificial blip, we are still at 14 million, so India's contribution to the overall PC TAM has actually gone up," he added.

The use cases where AI can enhance productivity include gaming and communication, Rossi added. Notably, chatbots can improve productivity by 25-30 per cent for India, which is also known as the back office of the world, Babu pointed - adding that vernacular demand will be unique to the country.

The executives also lauded the digital public infrastructure in India for the push.

The roadmap of AI experiences is not a sprint, but a marathon, Lenovo said, adding that it does not anticipate the inventory issue to be specific to AI. 

The company outlined the doubling of localisation content for phones in the next two years, adding that they are looking to work with industry bodies and the government for PCs as well.

Rossi said PC content in terms of memory storage is set to increase, with the industry and supply chain preparing for the spike in memory and hard disk. It is anticipated that apart from PCs and phones, EVs will also consume a lot of memory and storage, he added.