When you’re searching for the best AI laptop, your needs can vary a lot — sometimes you need serious power to generate a visual masterpiece from a complex prompt, and other times you’re just looking for a power-efficient system that can handle basic AI tasks and chatbots without killing the battery.
That's why I put every laptop through a complex set of AI tests to help find the best ones for you — whether you're already an experienced power user in the likes of Anthropic and ComfyUI, or you're just setting off into the world of ChatGPT.
My top picks
The best of the bunch when it comes to consumer AI, the HP Omnibook X packs a powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip that supercharges AI tasks while keeping them power efficient, thanks to that beefy NPU.
For the pros, AI requires more than just an NPU — a dedicated GPU is a requirement for the most intensive tasks like video generation or running a large language model (LLM) at decent speeds. With the serious AI gains of RTX 5090, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is the perfect pick for this purpose.
The M4 MacBook Air is a powerhouse of an AI ultraportable that we confidently use with key models, and is set to only get better with Apple Intelligence (provided Cupertino cranks out these features sooner rather than later).
Of course, AI laptops can come in all shapes and sizes with different capabilities. So to find the right one for you, there's really only one important question to ask yourself.
How do you actually use AI?
We conducted a recent survey and found that 51% of Americans claim to use AI in their day-to-day life. A lot of this will be in the form of the small things running through our everyday apps, whether its that subtle background blur on your webcam or maintaining eye contact when you're looking at your screen.
If this is about as far as you go with it, with maybe the occasional interactions with Copilot or Apple Intelligence, you will only need an NPU like what you find in the HP Omnibook X or M4 MacBook Air.
But if you are going more advanced with the likes of offline large models for image generation, you need some real GPU grunt from something like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 or M4 Pro MacBook Pro.
But these aren't the only choices. Read on for more detail on my personal picks for best AI laptops.
The best overall
Why is this the best overall AI laptop?
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The main focus of Copilot+ PCs is that NPU giving you over 40 TOPS of AI performance, as to not drain the battery by relying on the CPU to complete these tasks. While there are a lot of options, the HP OmniBook X nails the fundamentals with great performance and an astonishing battery life.
AI performance by the numbers
AI benchmark | Score |
|---|---|
Geekbench AI CPU test (Quantized Score) | 4440 |
Geekbench AI QNN test (Quantized Score) | 19071 |
Geekbench ML GPU test (DirectML) | 2148 |
Analyzing the numbers
The HP Omnibook X is perfect for general AI use. That NPU is optimized to complete AI and machine learning tasks that happen in the background when using Windows 11.
Whether it's quickly creating visual content through Paint CoCreator, upgrading the webcam quality by analyzing the picture, improving the built-in microphone quality, or brainstorming with Copilot, the high bandwidth allows for real-time AI interactions that react quickly to any prompt you throw at it.
Read our full HP OmniBook X review.
The best for power users
Why is this the best AI laptop for power users?
Yes, it's a gaming laptop (and it comes with an equally large gaming laptop price). But with RTX 5090, Nvidia went in hard on improving AI performance. Pair that with the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, a huge total wattage being pumped through these internals and impressive thermal management, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is a clear favorite for AI power users.
AI performance by the numbers
AI benchmark | Score |
|---|---|
Geekbench AI CPU test (Quantized Score) | 9724 |
Geekbench AI GPU test (Quantized Score) | 23227 |
Geekbench ML GPU test (DirectML) | 12964 |
Analyzing the numbers
While an NPU handles everyday AI tasks well enough, I’ve found that you really need the raw power of a GPU to push things further. With the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX paired with the RTX 5090 in this machine, I’m getting an incredible amount of AI processing capability — 1,837 TOPS, to be exact.
That kind of performance means I can breeze through demanding creative AI tasks, like complex text masking in Adobe Premiere Pro, and even train my own AI models if I want to. The sheer parallel processing power here makes this setup an absolute beast for anything AI-related.
Read our full Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 review.
Best value
Why is this the best value AI laptop?
For years now, Apple has packed a Neural Engine into its MacBooks (translation: an NPU) and the M4 MacBook Air continues this trend with seriously impressive local AI performance. Not only that, but Apple has doubled the base RAM and given you $100/£100 off the predecessor's retail price. More for less — you love to see it!
AI performance by the numbers
AI benchmark | Score |
|---|---|
Geekbench AI CPU test (Quantized Score) | 6280 |
Geekbench AI GPU test (Quantized Score) | 8890 |
Geekbench ML Neural Engine test (CoreML Quantized Score) | 50889 |
Analyzing the numbers
For me, the MacBook Air strikes a great balance when it comes to AI performance. The CPU and Neural Engine handle all those Apple Intelligence features smoothly — whether I’m rewording text, summarizing audio recordings, or playing around in the Image Playground.
t the same time, the GPU can keep up with some of the heavier AI workloads, like enhancing light and color in video clips using Final Cut Pro.
Just a quick heads-up from my own experience: the base model with a 256GB SSD really doesn’t cut it. It’s not just about running out of space — performance takes a hit too, with noticeably slower load times.
Read our full 13-inch M4 MacBook Air review.
The best AI Chromebook
Why is this the best AI Chromebook?
To get the best Chromebook AI features, you need to shell out for a Chromebook Plus system. However, with the Acer Chromebook Plus 515, you're not going to be spending much at all. In fact, this is the cheapest way to get into an AI PC experience — all in a sturdy laptop with a big 1080p display and stellar ergonomics.
AI performance by the numbers
Benchmark | Score |
|---|---|
Geekbench 6 single-core | 1767 |
Geekbench 6 multi-core | 5378 |
WebXPRT 4 | 266 |
Analyzing the numbers
Of course, with a Chromebook, nearly all of its AI features happen over the cloud. So for something like this, it's especially important that its browser performance is good to do this.
With WiFi 6, the Chromebook Plus 515 establishes a strong, stable connection that enables impressive real-time interactions with Gemini for all your needs. Plus, ChromeOS is easily the most sleek implementation of AI directly into the desktop UI I've seen — with rewriting, summarizing and researching options implemented directly into the right click function menu.
And if you need to do anything creative, there may not be the GPU brunt to do anything significant, but for quick photo edits and even some more generative features like moving subjects in photos, the highly optimized AI workstreams are delivered rapidly over the cloud.
Read our full Acer Chromebook Plus 515 review.
The best Windows AI PC
Why is this the best Windows AI laptop?
As the AI silicon wars heat up, Intel has thrown its hat into the ring with one of the best AI-centric chips you can find in a laptop — packed into the gorgeous Dell XPS 13. What matters here is that NPU and next generation Xe2 integrated GPU packing a serious amount of TOPs that can get the job done in short order.
AI performance by the numbers
AI Benchmark | Score |
|---|---|
Geekbench AI CPU test (Quantized score) | 3771 |
Geekbench AI GPU test (Quantized score) | 4201 |
Geekbench AI NPU test (Quantized score) | 25562 |
Analyzing the numbers
The NPU on-board in the new generation of Intel Core Ultra is one thing, but pair that with a drastically upgraded GPU with Intel Arc graphics and you've got a solid all-in-one AI machine — capable of a combined total of 68 TOPS of AI performance.
What all of this means in real world use is that thanks to Intel AI Boost, not only are you getting all those general AI tasks completed in speedy real-time (even allowing for space to be able to run a local model), but that GPU is capable of completing more generative-based AI tasks like those same machine learning-based video editing workloads.
Read our full Dell XPS 13 (Lunar Lake) review.
The best Macbook for AI
Why is this the best AI MacBook?
The M4 Pro MacBook Pro isn't just a great daily driver for prosumers, it's also a great AI PC too that will run all the Apple Intelligence features at their most breakneck speeds. Machine Learning tasks are handled rapidly by that Neural Engine — allowing you to truly speed up your workflows using all the brand new ML tools in Final Cut Pro 11.
AI performance by the numbers
AI Benchmark | Score |
|---|---|
Geekbench AI CPU test (Quantized score) | 6882 |
Geekbench AI GPU test (Quantized score) | 15110 |
Geekbench AI NPU test (Quantized score) | 49570 |
Analyzing the numbers
Whether it's running complex AI models locally on the MacBook Pro, such as the 32-billion parameter Qwen2.5 coder LLM, or advanced generative options like StableDiffusion running entirely on-device, the M4 Pro MacBook Pro is capable of doing it all.
The combination of 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU and that Neural Engine that is up to 4x faster than your standard AI PC makes for mind blowingly fast interactions with Apple Intelligence. But on top of that, even for those intense AI moments of local deep research or even machine learning-driven 3D animation, there is no sign of slowdown.
Of course the best of the best would be to get an M4 Max model, but the Neural engine gains between Max and Pro are super marginal — meaning you're getting a better AI price-to-performance ratio by opting for the mid-range chipset.
Read our full M4 Pro MacBook Pro review.
How we test AI laptops
To choose the best laptops for AI, we put each one through its paces with some brutal testing. Let me explain all the tests you saw above.
- Geekbench AI CPU test (Quantized score): The CPU's main purpose is more generalized towards keeping your laptop running smoothly. But as AI becomes more and more fundamental to the entire system, it's important that these cores are ready to handle machine learning applications. The Quantized score is the mean result of how well the device performed across a whole set of AI tests.
- Geekbench AI GPU test (Quantized score): For the more advanced generative side of things like video editing, the Geekbench AI GPU test puts the graphics card (or integrated graphics) to the test, to see how performant it is for all the parallel tasks that need to be completed in machine learning.
- Geekbench AI NPU test (Quantized score): Whether it's the Neural Engine on a MacBook or the NPU on a Windows laptop, this part of a chip is purpose-built to handle AI tasks and offload that pressure on the CPU. The faster this is, the better your system will be at those day-to-day AI tasks like webcam picture improvement.
There is one exception, though. Chromebooks do not have AI benchmarking tests available, and since all of its AI tasks are completed entirely on the cloud, the main thing to consider is WiFi speed here.
I've used laptops for 18 years and reviewed them for over 4 years — the AI PC movement is easily one of the biggest tectonic shifts in this space. Whatever your skill level with AI, there's a system for you that suits your needs — from completing simple tasks to complex prompt-driven generation.
