Bad news for Copilot+ laptops: AI PC 'supercycle' is a bust already claims one analyst

AI laptops such as Microsoft's much-hyped Copilot+ PCs might be set to flop, according to the latest word from one analyst.

This is semiconductor analyst Daniel Newman, who as Tom's Hardware noticed posted on X about Micron's Q3 earnings being slightly weaker than expected - and moreover, the forecast for Q2 2025 dropping considerably (from $8.98 billion to $7.9 billion in predicted revenue).

Newman points out that any 'panic' that this might be the beginning of the end for big AI profits is misplaced, as Micron's revenue for HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) in AI is very much booming, growing at a high double-digit percentage year-on-year.

The weakness is in memory for PC and smartphones, currently Micron's main business. Newman tells us:

"However, the core business is contracting as PC and smartphone shipments lag AND Micron is dealing with customer inventory that is selling off slowly leading to even lower booking/sell-through in this and the next quarter."

So, while HBM is selling well and generally going great guns, the analyst notes:

"The bad news is the AI PC and AI smartphone 'supercycle' has more or less been a bust."

Other analyst firms have been predicting huge growth for Copilot+ PCs, including Arm-based models, although the sales of laptops powered by Snapdragon X chips has thus far failed to impress based on the reports we've seen.

This latest nugget appears to be back up those tales of wobbly sales, and we're not exactly surprised. There are some great Copilot+ PCs out there, to be fair, but the AI angle for these laptops has yet to pan out in any real way - they are mostly sold on the strength of their overall performance and battery life. The AI features are, thus far, mostly sideshows of minor importance.

That must change for this category of device to make sense with its AI branding, of course, and we remain doubtful that Microsoft is pushing fast enough to make that happen with Windows 11 laptops.