HP is planning to roll out AI software to automate routine tasks and support decision-making on its enterprise AI PCs, offering enterprises an alternative to Microsfot’s cloud-based Copilot.
Unveiled at HP’s Imagine event on Tuesday, HP IQ will initially be available in early access on the next generation of HP EliteBook X G2 AI PCs in the second quarter, and will move onto other notebooks, desktops, and Poly Studio Video Bars in a limited release in the third quarter.
“Employees who receive a new HP AI PC can now use a powerful AI tool that comes built into the device, and a powerful 20-billion-parameter model packed into these PCs is robust enough to power the most complex of workflows all without a dependency on internet access, so you can work on the airplane or on the client site without issue,” said Matt Brown, director of product, HP IQ. It can also offload work to the cloud when necessary, if enterprise policy and user permissions allow.
Initial HP IQ on-device AI experiences include Ask IQ, which responds to both text and voice inputs; Analyze, which looks at personal files and generates summaries and actionable insights; Notes and Knowledge, which keeps track of interactions and organizes notes; and Meeting Agent, which records notes or captures ideas during meetings. HP says additional capabilities will roll out later this year.
HP plans to use Google’s Device-to-Device-Infrastructure APIs in IQ to let Windows PCs, Android devices, and meeting room devices discover, connect, and share tasks with each other, a feature HP calls NearSense. For example, users will be able to pass files to nearby co-workers by dragging and dropping them from the IQ app.
IQ also provides a new user interface, Visor, that appears in the top third of the screen when needed and fades away when not required, Brown said.
HP’s launch of IQ is a strategic play to own the local AI experience, said Anurag Agrawal, chief global analyst at Techaisle. “NearSense aims to eliminate the friction of multi-device collaboration with instant, secure device discovery and handoffs. The Visor UI serves as the contextual layer, dynamically adapting to what the user is doing to keep them in their flow. By keeping this orchestration local, HP is offering enterprises the benefits of AI without the data privacy and latency risks of sending proprietary files to the cloud.”
Moor Insights & Strategy Principal Analyst Anshel Sag expects HP IQ to become a major focal point for the company. “It should help to improve user productivity while also leveraging on-device compute, which should help to improve operational costs while boosting productivity,” he said.
Management platform
HP’s Workforce Experience Platform (WXP) is also gaining new AI features to help IT understand how devices are performing and provide automated ways to remediate issues.
The additions include enhanced AI remediation, in which every alert comes with AI-generated guidance or automation to help resolve the issue more quickly and with less manual effort. Along with the recently released Workflow Builder, it allows IT to automate scheduled or event- or alert-triggered tasks.
New custom data reports give customers the flexibility to design reports that show what matters to them, rather than being forced to rely on canned dashboards.
“With the ability to tailor device health telemetry reporting, IT can pinpoint the root cause of issues — whether it’s maxed out memory, an OS fault or an outdated app — and uncover trends across the fleet that point to optimization opportunities,” HP said.
Another new feature, Pulse Notifications for Microsoft Teams can be used to prompt employees to perform corrective actions such as removing noncompliant software.
HP has also extended the WXP API to include Protect and Trace with Wolf Connect, a tie-in to HP Wolf Security that lets IT locate, lock, and erase PCs even if they’re turned off.
Finally, a new premium service, Poly+ Analyze, offers premium support for HP’s Poly collaboration environments.
All of these features are currently available, and some time in the third quarter HP will also add a Carbon Footprint Report to provide visibility into device usage, power consumption, and estimated carbon emissions.
Agrawal is impressed with the enhancements. “HP is successfully maturing WXP from a passive monitoring dashboard into an active management and remediation engine,” he said.
And, he added, “HP is recognizing that the future of work is not just about faster silicon; it is about removing daily digital friction. HP’s strategy to bridge hardware, localized AI, and seamless connectivity directly targets that friction. Crucially, by keeping AI inferencing for things like document analysis local to the device, they are democratizing AI access while bypassing the massive data privacy, latency, and token-cost concerns associated with cloud-based models.”
However, the new offerings are not unique, he said. HP IQ and NearSense show parallels to what Lenovo is doing with Qira, AI Now, and its Aura Edition Smart Share.
“This is the new battleground for PC OEMs,” he said. “What this tells us is that hardware vendors realize they cannot just be delivery vehicles for Microsoft Copilot. By building these localized, cross-device AI and connectivity meshes, HP is actively trying to reclaim user stickiness and own the layer between the OS and the user.”
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