5 ms·

Computex 2026: Are We Heading for the Agentic PC Era Yet?

32 points by rbanffy 5mo ago

devn0ll 5mo ago
Seeing how we are responding to AI or the copilot button on pc's... I _dare_ to suggest this "Agentic era" is nothing more then wishful thinking. Not supported by any real wish or need on the consumer side. Well, at least for me: no thanks.
- corv 5mo ago
  Less space than a nomad. Lame. To be fair, I find the term to be as contrived as “performant”
- tmaly 5mo ago
  I had to buy a new washing machine last year. It has an AI mode, what ever that is. I have never used the mode.
  - syberspace 5mo ago
    as far as I've understood the AI mode on my new-ish washing machine: it's just a renamed "automatic" mode that uses a sensor to measure how heavy the load is and adjusts the cycle length. there is absolutely no AI involved, just an if-statement or equivalent logic gates. I'd guess yours does something similar
    - jagged-chisel 5mo ago
      Literally, “simulated intelligence” at best. But for marketing, “artificial intelligence” is fine. And better than LLMs being called “AI”
      - ajam1507 5mo ago
        Surprising that there are still people who don't think LLMs qualify as AI
        Octoth0rpe 5mo ago
        I think in some people's minds, the concept of sentience and intelligence are intertwined, and there are at least some people (myself included) who do not think they're the same. There is a strong (but surprisingly not universal) consensus that LLMs are not sentient, so if you insist that sentience/intelligence are the same thing, then LLMs don't qualify as AI either. If you think the two concepts are separable, then they're intelligent but not sentient. The devil is of course in the definitions.
    - Animats 5mo ago
      Washers now do have useful control systems. Mine starts out by spinning the tub a little, before adding water, to measure the load. Out of balance problems are a thing of the past - that's sensed and dealt with automatically. It's able to handle bed comforters or sneakers without problems. But it's not "AI", and it doesn't have a network connection.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - andai 5mo ago
    On my walk today I passed an LG company van. It had an ad for one of their new AC units on the side. "AI Air"
    - throw-the-towel 5mo ago
      A bar I know had an "AI designed shot" back in 2023.
  - forinti 5mo ago
    There's a billboard near my home with an ad for "AI designed glasses".
  - squid_ca 5mo ago
    Mine too. I think it's just a buzzword, like, this would have been called "Smart Wash" five years ago.
- XorNot 5mo ago
  What you're not planning to upgrade from your Web 3.0 platform to an Agentic one? Scandalous!
- Closi 5mo ago
  > Seeing how we are responding to AI or the copilot button on pc's... I _dare_ to suggest this "Agentic era" is nothing more then wishful thinking Depends who 'we' is - I've seen plenty of non-tech people in the real world begin to use ChatGPT as a primary information source rather than the web (rightfully or not!) I suspect that 'we' might not be the true early adopters here, similar to how quite a lot of the most technical users in the 80's thought GUI's were a waste of time.
  - Octoth0rpe 5mo ago
    > Depends who 'we' is - I've seen plenty of non-tech people in the real world begin to use ChatGPT as a primary information source rather than the web (rightfully or not!) I don't think that's really what people are talking about when they talk about 'agentic' PCs.
    - cromka 5mo ago
      I think that was example of how previously seemingly impossible things are happening things are happening quickly.
    - Closi 5mo ago
      I think we are more broadly talking about what the user interface is going to be in the future and how people will interact with a computer - many people already want to interact with ChatGPT to get answers rather than navigate to a website, or want to prompt ChatGPT to generate a leaflet rather than design one in Microsoft Word, so 'Agentic PCs' is just an extension to that.
  - devn0ll 5mo ago
    > similar to how quite a lot of the most technical users in the 80's thought GUI's were a waste of time Well... They are! ;-) (It's a joke, but at the same time, I do see a terminal resurgence the past few years)
- cromka 5mo ago
  As much as I hate it, you and your opinion is exactly what Jobs always talked about: people don't need things until they realize they need them. You not envisioning use for it is just a past bias. You can't know that. You can't because we haven't yet reached the point where the OS is fully useful when controlled with AI.
  - gedy 5mo ago
    But the industry types have been talking about "agents" for 30 years... This used to be a thing that "intelligent agents will go on the internet and gather information for you" then search engines came out and people were happy with that instead.
    - spankibalt 5mo ago
      Yeah, just a week ago I read an interview with Alan Kay from 1990, where he shared his thoughts about the third revolution in computing: the "intimate computer" (the agentic platform that follows the "institutional computer" and the "personal computer").
      - cromka 5mo ago
        Except it is only now when this is actually possible.
        spankibalt 5mo ago
        Funnily enough, he spoke about one of his first "agentic computing" implementations: a computer agent of his he tasked with compiling a sort of newspaper for breakfast reading. It ran overnight for 12 to 15 hrs., and collated textual as well as graphical information from specified news resources and databases. That was ten years before the interview, in 1980. Sadly, the piece doesn't go into more detail on the setup or its performance metrics. He also mentioned that the idea of agentic computing was already 30 years old, and that he was busying himself with the topic for 15 years by then (1990). So... five years from taking interest (mid-70s) to his first practical implementations (1980).
- georgeburdell 5mo ago
  Agentic for most people should mean an easy way to fix what were previously missing UI features. Hopefully companies are (with permission) paying attention to user prompts in aggregate to guide UX work
yogthos 5mo ago
I think it's almost certain that we'll be moving to running local models as a default in a few years. The quality of small models has been improving at an astonishing rate in my opinion. My favorite example is how Qwen3.6-27B that you can run on a laptop outperforms Qwen3.5-397B which was a flagship model requiring a commercial grade server that was released just in February. https://qwen.ai/blog?id=qwen3.6-27b https://qwen.ai/blog?id=qwen3.6-27b I fully expect that local models models that are comparable to current frontier models in performance will appear in the near future. Additionally, a lot more can be done with the harness as well, which in my opinion is an under-explored territory right now. For example, ATLAS does some clever tricks in this area https://github.com/itigges22/ATLAS https://github.com/itigges22/ATLAS I started working on my own harness and also notice a significant improvement in model capability with it https://dirge-code.github.io https://dirge-code.github.io Apple seems to be one of the few companies to have realized that the future is likely local, and they've been focusing on optimizing hardware for that while everybody else seems to still be stuck in a model as a service paradigm.
- baron3dl 5mo ago
  I think Apple's tech-heavy user base and vertically integrated hardware/network/software mega architecture positioned them perfectly to beat the rest of the market to 1st runner up. The competition knows, they just can't move that fast. > I started working on my own harness and also notice a significant improvement in model capability with it https://dirge-code.github.io https://dirge-code.github.io You should mine your session logs for examples of scenarios that demonstrate this improvement. If you can characterize it in a time series metric, like tokens/feature, as you applied improvements, then you're offering a receipt.
  - yogthos 5mo ago
    Yeah, that's a good idea. I haven't really been rigorous with tracking the token usage metrics when I started. I was thinking I could compare solving tasks with opencode too and track metrics for both.
- ch3coohlink 5mo ago
Avicebron 5mo ago
As long as the models are local this doesn't seem that crazy. What concerns me is that these are "agentic PCs" that only work with a subscription.
Henchman21 5mo ago
Given that we’re making ourselves dumber through AI, education funding cuts, social media, and foolish propaganda AND the population is shrinking and everyone is seemingly depressed: The most likely outcome is the world in the children’s cartoon “Thundarr the Barbarian”. People living in the collapsed ruins of the past society, belief in magic, etc. A post-apocalyptic hellscape, essentially.
- andai 5mo ago
  > People living in the collapsed ruins of the past society Kind of feels like I was already born into that.
  - baron3dl 5mo ago
    is this not an essential human condition?
Animats 5mo ago
The "agentic PC" for consumers probably would be something you talk to, and would look like Alexa or a living room TV or glasshole glasses. Something other than a keyboard and screen combo.
Mabusto 5mo ago
As long as I can connect my 3D TV, I can't wait to sip some Juicero and watch Quibi on it.
sanreds 5mo ago
[flagged]

32 points by rbanffy 5mo ago

Seeing how we are responding to AI or the copilot button on pc's... I _dare_ to suggest this "Agentic era" is nothing more then wishful thinking. Not supported by any real wish or need on the consumer side. Well, at least for me: no thanks.

corv 5mo ago
Less space than a nomad. Lame. To be fair, I find the term to be as contrived as “performant”
tmaly 5mo ago
I had to buy a new washing machine last year. It has an AI mode, what ever that is. I have never used the mode.
- syberspace 5mo ago
  as far as I've understood the AI mode on my new-ish washing machine: it's just a renamed "automatic" mode that uses a sensor to measure how heavy the load is and adjusts the cycle length. there is absolutely no AI involved, just an if-statement or equivalent logic gates. I'd guess yours does something similar
  - jagged-chisel 5mo ago
    Literally, “simulated intelligence” at best. But for marketing, “artificial intelligence” is fine. And better than LLMs being called “AI”
    - ajam1507 5mo ago
      Surprising that there are still people who don't think LLMs qualify as AI
      - Octoth0rpe 5mo ago
        I think in some people's minds, the concept of sentience and intelligence are intertwined, and there are at least some people (myself included) who do not think they're the same. There is a strong (but surprisingly not universal) consensus that LLMs are not sentient, so if you insist that sentience/intelligence are the same thing, then LLMs don't qualify as AI either. If you think the two concepts are separable, then they're intelligent but not sentient. The devil is of course in the definitions.
  - Animats 5mo ago
    Washers now do have useful control systems. Mine starts out by spinning the tub a little, before adding water, to measure the load. Out of balance problems are a thing of the past - that's sensed and dealt with automatically. It's able to handle bed comforters or sneakers without problems. But it's not "AI", and it doesn't have a network connection.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- andai 5mo ago
  On my walk today I passed an LG company van. It had an ad for one of their new AC units on the side. "AI Air"
  - throw-the-towel 5mo ago
    A bar I know had an "AI designed shot" back in 2023.
- forinti 5mo ago
  There's a billboard near my home with an ad for "AI designed glasses".
- squid_ca 5mo ago
  Mine too. I think it's just a buzzword, like, this would have been called "Smart Wash" five years ago.
XorNot 5mo ago
What you're not planning to upgrade from your Web 3.0 platform to an Agentic one? Scandalous!
Closi 5mo ago
> Seeing how we are responding to AI or the copilot button on pc's... I _dare_ to suggest this "Agentic era" is nothing more then wishful thinking Depends who 'we' is - I've seen plenty of non-tech people in the real world begin to use ChatGPT as a primary information source rather than the web (rightfully or not!) I suspect that 'we' might not be the true early adopters here, similar to how quite a lot of the most technical users in the 80's thought GUI's were a waste of time.
- Octoth0rpe 5mo ago
  > Depends who 'we' is - I've seen plenty of non-tech people in the real world begin to use ChatGPT as a primary information source rather than the web (rightfully or not!) I don't think that's really what people are talking about when they talk about 'agentic' PCs.
  - cromka 5mo ago
    I think that was example of how previously seemingly impossible things are happening things are happening quickly.
  - Closi 5mo ago
    I think we are more broadly talking about what the user interface is going to be in the future and how people will interact with a computer - many people already want to interact with ChatGPT to get answers rather than navigate to a website, or want to prompt ChatGPT to generate a leaflet rather than design one in Microsoft Word, so 'Agentic PCs' is just an extension to that.
- devn0ll 5mo ago
  > similar to how quite a lot of the most technical users in the 80's thought GUI's were a waste of time Well... They are! ;-) (It's a joke, but at the same time, I do see a terminal resurgence the past few years)
cromka 5mo ago
As much as I hate it, you and your opinion is exactly what Jobs always talked about: people don't need things until they realize they need them. You not envisioning use for it is just a past bias. You can't know that. You can't because we haven't yet reached the point where the OS is fully useful when controlled with AI.
- gedy 5mo ago
  But the industry types have been talking about "agents" for 30 years... This used to be a thing that "intelligent agents will go on the internet and gather information for you" then search engines came out and people were happy with that instead.
  - spankibalt 5mo ago
    Yeah, just a week ago I read an interview with Alan Kay from 1990, where he shared his thoughts about the third revolution in computing: the "intimate computer" (the agentic platform that follows the "institutional computer" and the "personal computer").
    - cromka 5mo ago
      Except it is only now when this is actually possible.
      - spankibalt 5mo ago
        Funnily enough, he spoke about one of his first "agentic computing" implementations: a computer agent of his he tasked with compiling a sort of newspaper for breakfast reading. It ran overnight for 12 to 15 hrs., and collated textual as well as graphical information from specified news resources and databases. That was ten years before the interview, in 1980. Sadly, the piece doesn't go into more detail on the setup or its performance metrics. He also mentioned that the idea of agentic computing was already 30 years old, and that he was busying himself with the topic for 15 years by then (1990). So... five years from taking interest (mid-70s) to his first practical implementations (1980).
georgeburdell 5mo ago
Agentic for most people should mean an easy way to fix what were previously missing UI features. Hopefully companies are (with permission) paying attention to user prompts in aggregate to guide UX work

yogthos 5mo ago

I think it's almost certain that we'll be moving to running local models as a default in a few years. The quality of small models has been improving at an astonishing rate in my opinion. My favorite example is how Qwen3.6-27B that you can run on a laptop outperforms Qwen3.5-397B which was a flagship model requiring a commercial grade server that was released just in February. https://qwen.ai/blog?id=qwen3.6-27b https://qwen.ai/blog?id=qwen3.6-27b I fully expect that local models models that are comparable to current frontier models in performance will appear in the near future. Additionally, a lot more can be done with the harness as well, which in my opinion is an under-explored territory right now. For example, ATLAS does some clever tricks in this area https://github.com/itigges22/ATLAS https://github.com/itigges22/ATLAS I started working on my own harness and also notice a significant improvement in model capability with it https://dirge-code.github.io https://dirge-code.github.io Apple seems to be one of the few companies to have realized that the future is likely local, and they've been focusing on optimizing hardware for that while everybody else seems to still be stuck in a model as a service paradigm.

baron3dl 5mo ago
I think Apple's tech-heavy user base and vertically integrated hardware/network/software mega architecture positioned them perfectly to beat the rest of the market to 1st runner up. The competition knows, they just can't move that fast. > I started working on my own harness and also notice a significant improvement in model capability with it https://dirge-code.github.io https://dirge-code.github.io You should mine your session logs for examples of scenarios that demonstrate this improvement. If you can characterize it in a time series metric, like tokens/feature, as you applied improvements, then you're offering a receipt.
- yogthos 5mo ago
  Yeah, that's a good idea. I haven't really been rigorous with tracking the token usage metrics when I started. I was thinking I could compare solving tasks with opencode too and track metrics for both.
ch3coohlink 5mo ago

Avicebron 5mo ago

As long as the models are local this doesn't seem that crazy. What concerns me is that these are "agentic PCs" that only work with a subscription.

Henchman21 5mo ago

Given that we’re making ourselves dumber through AI, education funding cuts, social media, and foolish propaganda AND the population is shrinking and everyone is seemingly depressed: The most likely outcome is the world in the children’s cartoon “Thundarr the Barbarian”. People living in the collapsed ruins of the past society, belief in magic, etc. A post-apocalyptic hellscape, essentially.

andai 5mo ago
> People living in the collapsed ruins of the past society Kind of feels like I was already born into that.
- baron3dl 5mo ago
  is this not an essential human condition?

Animats 5mo ago

The "agentic PC" for consumers probably would be something you talk to, and would look like Alexa or a living room TV or glasshole glasses. Something other than a keyboard and screen combo.

Mabusto 5mo ago

As long as I can connect my 3D TV, I can't wait to sip some Juicero and watch Quibi on it.

sanreds 5mo ago

[flagged]