Dell admits customers are “not buying based on AI” in refreshing CES 2026 showcase
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In a refreshing change of events for CES this year, Dell has clearly figured out that many of us do not, in fact, care for AI branding on consumer hardware. Shaking up the status quo at the event, Kevin Terwilliger, Dell’s head of product, stated that what they “learned over the course of this year, especially from a consumer perspective, is they’re not buying based on AI”.
Rather, he believes AI “probably confuses them [consumers] more than it helps them understand a specific outcome.” So, in a turnaround from last year’s event, where they were big on AI PCs, this year, the marketing term is missing from their releases. In fact, its announcements are refreshing and outright interesting in what they’re offering to the buyers.
There are the new UltraSharp monitors with some impressive features and design for productivity and creative workloads, along with upgrades to the Alienware lineup. With new processors, displays, and even an announcement of entry-level hardware, it’s certainly lacking any AI branding across the various hardware.
AI capabilities are still there for Dell
Although on the surface, AI branding is missing, the hardware for it is still there. As Kevin says about Dell, “We’re very focused on delivering upon the AI capabilities of a device; in fact, everything that we’re announcing has an NPU in it”. With the Alienware laptops receiving Core Ultra 200 processors, they will still have the neural processing to run AI programs more effectively.
It just seems a little nicer not have to hear about AI in everything, particularly consumer hardware. It dumbs things back down again for the average user, who most likely will not care about those things. On the other end of operations, Dell is working on AI infrastructure for businesses.
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With the consumer announcements, it also said it is working with Nvidia to build new servers and networking. Integrating Vera Rubin and delivering 3.6 exaflops of performance and advanced networking, it certainly is not giving up AI infrastructure, for obvious reasons, as the AI industry continues to grow.
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