Best AI laptop | Tom’s Guide

When looking for the best AI laptop, your needs can span far and wide — whether it’s looking for enough power to generate a visual masterpiece with a complex prompt, or a power-efficient system that can handle basic AI-driven tasks and chatbots without draining the battery.

Laptop makers have been responding hard to this. A huge array of Copilot+ PCs are bringing the Windows 11 vision of AI to life on the Neural Processing Unit (NPU), while Chromebook Plus is bringing new Large Language Model (LLM) innovations to help make your laptop smarter. On top of that, Apple Intelligence is close to being deeply infused into MacBooks.

And throughout all of this, there are laptops you may not even realize are great for AI workloads, but are low key powerhouses in this area. All it takes is a setup that has enough RAM (16GB minimum), enough storage to install all the data needed for an AI model to work (1TB minimum), and a configuration of parts that is capable of driving enough Trillions of Operations Per Second (TOPs) to deliver the goods.

So 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, you can count on finding the right option for you here!

The quick list

Jason England

I’ve reviewed laptops for over four years, and 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.

The best overall

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. And while there are a lot of options, the HP OmniBook X stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Why is that? Well it comes down to it nailing the fundamentals of a laptop — pairing great performance with astonishing battery life, and packing it all into a sleek, stylish and durable chassis with a top notch keyboard.

Of course, as Tony Polanco pointed out in his review of this laptop, the Copilot+ AI features aren’t really that useful at the moment. They certainly make Windows fun again, but it’ll take some iteration to watch some genuinely game changing features come.

But in terms of an ultraportable AI system for your local models (and for future-proofing when the improved Copilot does arrive), there’s no better option.

Read our full HP OmniBook X review.

The best for power users

Now I know what you’re thinking here… Why in the blue hell are we recommending a fully-specced gaming laptop? Not only that, but one that didn’t necessarily light up our gaming benchmarks? Well, if you’re not in the know, there’s a common misconception about what makes an AI PC.

If you listen to the likes of Qualcomm, AMD and Intel (following the lead of Microsoft), it’s all about the NPU. But for a power user, that small chunk of a chipset architecture is only part of the bigger picture to AI wizardry. To achieve pro status, a top tier GPU is essential, and the combination of Intel Core Ultra 9 and RTX 4090 in the ROG Zephyrus G16 is a complete AI powerhouse.

Case in point, HP’s OmniBook X has around 45 TOPs of AI performance. The G16 has in excess of 400. In terms of AI creativity, a dedicated GPU is essential for speed and complexity. So in terms of raw power, you’ll be set.

Read our full Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 review.

Best value

For years now, Apple has packed a Neural Engine into its MacBooks (translation: an NPU) and the company’s stayed relatively quiet about it. That was until this year when the AI boom happened, and now the M3 MacBook Air is being branded “the best consumer AI laptop.” And when it comes to the best value for money, we’re inclined to agree.

Just one quick heads up, though. In our own testing, the base model with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD is not enough for your standard model to run effectively. Our AI editor Ryan Morrison is regularly running into problems maxing out its capabilities. So to really make the most of AI on the MacBook Air, you’ll need 16GB RAM and 1TB of storage.

And with a slick, slim design (which is light at 2.7 pounds) and a stellar battery life, this is a great all-round laptop too!

Read our full 13-inch M3 MacBook Air review.

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.

Sure, you do feel the compromises made here to keep the cost down, such as an all-plastic construction and a touchpad that has more of a spongey feel rather than tactile, but the keyboard is solid, the display is big and colorful, and the battery life is better than you’d expect from a cheap Google-driven laptop.

Let me be clear. These AI features all run in the cloud, so while you may look at that lack of NPU and balk, this is primarily there to keep everything running smooth while you keep an internet connection to make the most of its user friendly feature set — from rewording emails in different tones to moving subjects in photos.

Read all about the new Chromebook Plus AI features — tested on the Acer Chromebook Plus 515.

The best Windows AI PC

With Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processor inside, the Surface Pro 11 finally nails that 2-in-1 that finds a sweet spot between big performance and long battery life. On top of that, it is also one of the most direct ways to interact with AI.

You see, that touchscreen with pen support means you can have a closer relationship with AI image generation and touch-ups — from your simpler methods like Paint’s Cocreator to getting into the more advanced side of DALL-E.

Once again, we recommend you steer clear of the 8GB RAM option and bump that up to 16, which works in your favor thanks to giving you that drop dead gorgeous OLED display that packs a flash flood of color and impressive brightness, while also prolonging the stamina too.

Read our full Microsoft Surface Pro 11 review.

The best Macbook for AI

The M3 Pro MacBook Pro isn’t just a great daily driver for prosumers, it’s also a great AI PC too. Machine Learning tasks are handled rapidly by that Neural Engine — allowing you to truly speed up your workflows using ML tools in the likes of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro.

And this is before we even get access to Apple Intelligence in macOS Sequoia, which is going to pair AI with personal context to provide genuinely useful features across the board. For the creative pro (and with a $200 discount a lot of the time), the M3 Pro is a top notch option.

Of course the best of the best would be to get an M3 Max model, but the Neural engine gains between Max and Pro are a lot more marginal (only a few % points difference in my own Geekbench ML testing) — meaning you’re getting a better AI price-to-performance ratio by opting for the mid-range chipset.

Read our full M3 Pro MacBook Pro review.