‘Thirteen years in, we’re driven by the same goal we’ve always been: empowering people to realize their vision and create new worlds,’ says Brett Ostrum, Microsoft’s Surface corporate vice president.
Microsoft plans to make enterprise and commercial versions of its new 13-inch Surface Pro and new Surface Laptop options with Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 processors available starting July 14 as demand for on-device artificial intelligence workload processing prompts solution provider interest in AI PCs.
Consumer versions of the devices are now available. The Redmond, Wash.-based technology giant with about 500,000 partners worldwide positions the new Pro device as the fastest model yet and a lightweight tablet without sacrificing Windows power and flexibility, according to a statement Tuesday.
The new Surface Laptops—coming in 13.8 inches or 15 inches—increase the battery life for workers on the go who might need on-device inference, cloud-scale processing and even hybrid approaches, Brett Ostrum, Microsoft’s Surface corporate vice president, said in a statement Tuesday.
“Thirteen years in, we’re driven by the same goal we’ve always been: empowering people to realize their vision and create new worlds,” Ostrum said. “We’ll keep building. The rest is yours.”
[RELATED: New Microsoft Surface Devices, AI Experiences Weeks Away]
Microsoft Targets AI PCs With New Surface Offers
Chris Bogan, vice president of sales at Houston-based Mark III Systems, told CRN in an interview that the solution provider has been investing heavily in AI PCs to meet customer demand.
Even customers of Mark III—whose partners include computer makers Microsoft, Dell Technologies and Lenovo plus chipmakers including Nvidia—who are just dipping their toes into how AI PCs can revolutionize their businesses are still building playgrounds, demonstration centers and centers of excellence to prepare the organization, Bogan said.
“It’s one of the focus areas” for Mark III this year, Bogan said. “That’s just happening organically, so it’s all about supporting the customer. This is a key part to supporting customers is having AI PCs and those offerings and the skill sets around it.”
The new Surface devices come on the heels of new Surface Pro for Business and Surface Laptop for Business powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors made available last month.
Microsoft revealed earlier this month a Surface RTX Spark Dev Box compact developer PC engineered with Nvidia’s RTX Spark superchip and built on the Windows developer platform for local-first AI work.
Last month, the technology giant said it would bring its most powerful Surface Laptop yet, the Ultra, to market with Nvidia’s Blackwell RTX graphics processing unit (GPU). The Ultra promises up to 128 gigabytes (GB) of unified memory, full support for Nvidia’s Cuda parallel computing platform and programming model and 1 petaflop of AI compute capable of running up to 120 billion parameter models locally, according to Microsoft.
Microsoft plans to make Surface RTX Spark Dev Box and Surface Laptop Ultra available later this year.
Surface Pro, Laptop Gain Snapdragon X2, NPU Performance Boosts
Early signs of growth in the emerging AI PC market are emerging. During HP’s latest quarterly earnings call in May, company executives disclosed that AI PCs increased from more than 35 percent to 44 percent of shipment mix in the quarter.
In April, IT distributor Ingram Micro said that AI PCs are about a quarter of its overall PC base and growing, according to a call transcript. Improved AI PC pricing could help demand broaden, with a wider AI PC adoption potentially extending the device refresh cycle and smoothing some of the historical cyclicality of the traditional endpoint market, according to a William Blair report in June.
In April, Gartner said worldwide PC shipments totaled 62.8 million units in the first quarter of 2026, up 4 percent year on year. However, the research firm attributed the increase to customers trying to get ahead of price hikes. Lenovo held the highest market share at 26.5 percent followed by HP at 19.3 percent and Dell at 16.5 percent. Lenovo saw 9.5 percent growth year on year and Dell experienced 7.6 percent growth. HP saw a 4.9 percent decline year on year.
An April report by International Data Corp. and sponsored by chip vendor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) showed that 60 percent of organizations are piloting or have already deployed AI PCs–with 33 percent of organizations already piloting the devices. And 21 percent of organizations plan to deploy AI PCs within 12 months.
The Surface devices come with a dedicated neural processing unit, optimized Windows integration and full cloud connectivity. The Pro’s NPU can run unique AI tasks locally for speed, privacy and responsiveness and connect to the cloud for more complex workloads.
The consumer version of the new 13-inch Surface Pro comes in platinum, black and dune and starts at $1,499 manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP), according to a Microsoft statement Tuesday.
Surface Pro with Snapdragon X2 delivers up to 53 percent faster graphic performance than the prior generation with up to 15.5 hours of battery life. The two-in-one has a built-in kickstand for adjusting the tablet’s angle. Users can navigate with the pen, their touch and their voice.
It measures 11.3 inches by 8.2 inches by .37 inches and weighs 1.97 pounds.
The new Surface Laptops with Snapdragon X2 start at $1,599 MSRP and bring up to 58 percent more graphics performance than the previous generation, according to Microsoft. They have up to 64GB of memory.
The 13.8-inch version has up to 20 hours of battery life while the 15-inch one offers up to 19 hours.
The 13.8-inch Laptop has an additional jade color option on top of the three Surface Pro colors. The 15-inch Laptop can go from 201 pixels per inch to 262 PPI for improved detail and clarity. These mark the sharpest displays for a Surface Laptop yet, according to Microsoft. Their displays have up to 600 nits and a 120 Hertz refresh rate.
The 13.8-inch laptop measures 11.85 inches by 8.67 inches by .69 inches and weighs 3 pounds. The 15-inch version measures 12.96 inches by 9.41 inches by .72 inches and weighs 3.67 pounds. The 15-inch version adds a Micro Secure Digital Extended Capacity (MicroSDXC) Express memory card reader
Microsoft has also made available a Surface Repair Tool that gives users workflows designed by the vendor. Users can see key device information from one screen and run tests on batteries, displays, cameras and other supported components. Repair Tool also walks users through guided repairs for batteries, displays, touchpads, motherboards and other eligible parts.
Microsoft is also allowing U.S. customers to receive a free Surface Pro 13-inch Keyboard when purchasing the same size Surface Pro until June 30. Customers can also receive a free Surface Arc Mouse when buying the Surface Laptop 13.8-inch or Surface Laptop 15-inch and trade in old devices to save up to $900, according to the vendor.
Microsoft isn’t the only computer maker launching new devices to take full advantage of the AI era, with compelling PCs showcased this year by HP, Apple, Lenovo and others.
