Framework disses other PC makers about overuse of AI branding

Framework made a snarky post on X last May 29, asking if it was the only laptop maker that doesn’t slap AI branding all over its landing page. This was probably made in regards to the upcoming Computex 2024, which started on June 3, and had AI everywhere. The company then made a follow-up post a couple of weeks later, saying that May was its highest revenue month since Framework started, meaning its non-use of AI branding isn’t having a negative effect on the company’s sales.

Despite that, Framework’s current laptop offerings already have AI capabilities. The Framework Laptop 16 can be had with a Ryzen 7 7840HS or a Ryzen 9 7940HS, with both chips capable of hitting 10 TOPS. On the other hand, you can pick between the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H, Ultra 7 155H, or the Ultra 7 165H process for the smaller Framework Laptop 13, with the best Intel chip capable of hitting up 34 TOPS.

Ever since AI entered mainstream consciousness, many companies have taken advantage of the mystique and mystery of this technology, with some adding AI branding to their products given the chance. For example, AMD’s mobile chips for the Ryzen 7000 and 8000 families had the 70XX and 80XX naming scheme. However, its latest Strix Point chips, which we expected to be named Ryzen 80XX, instead became Ryzen AI 300.

HP created a new AI Helix logo to differentiate its laptops that with 40+ TOPs per second and has Windows 11, and Microsoft even launched its Copilot+ PC branding last month. Even Cooler Master China tried to get in on the bandwagon by announcing an ‘AI Thermal Paste’, although the company later clarified the issue saying it was just a mistranslation.

AI technologies are useful in several applications, like medicine. For example, some scientists used an LLM to interpret thoughts, giving us the possibility to build an interface that would allow a quadriplegic to operate an machine that will help them regain their mobility and independence. However, AI (or at least its current iteration) isn’t at the level yet of what most people think of — a living, thinking machine that can reason just like a person. But marketing people are using our preconceived notion of what AI is to sell us machines.

Sure, the NPUs and other features on these AI devices (except for the thermal paste) are technically ‘AI’, but they’re not yet the AI we see in movies and TV shows like Star Trek, Star Wars, or (and we hope this will never come to pass) Terminator. So, while marketers and ad agencies are free to use the AI branding all they want, we, the consumer, should remember that AI is still in its infancy on the PC.