By Sean Hollister
Publication Date: 2026-09-25 01:25:00
Remember when Microsoft wanted everyone to know that “Copilot Plus PCs” were the ones to get, because those were the PCs that that’d have enough built-in AI muscle to get things done? Two and a half years later, Microsoft and Qualcomm seem to be admitting the brand is already dead.
Kedar Kondap, Qualcomm’s SVP of compute and gaming, seemed to agree that the brand’s time is done, telling Bowden that computers that offer the same experiences will “probably” not use that branding anymore.
It’s not surprising to me that Microsoft and its partners would back away. Back in 2024, smart minds pointed out that (almost) every PC would soon contain the basic levels of AI hardware that the brand was supposed to reflect. The flagship feature of Copilot Plus PCs, Microsoft’s Recall feature, wasn’t well received, and Microsoft took flak for constantly annoying Windows users with AI upsells, not to mention the dedicated Copilot keyboard key that you can now finally remap.
Besides,…
