Treasury Intern

Hewlett Packard, Dell have a PC problem. I use my computer a lot. I've written over 8,000 articles in the past 12 years and edited countless more. Needless to say, like many, my computer is essential to my day-to-day, and that doesn't include all the time I use it to stream movies and shows, or keep tabs on the latest news. My current machine, a Hewlett-Packard All-in-One, is hardly cutting-edge. I bought it in 2020 during Covid. It's powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 3500U, a chip old enough that Gemini tells me it's "significantly out of date in both speed and power efficiency." Still, it gets the job done, and while I thought I might need an upgrade because of AI, I really haven't noticed a dramatic enough lag to prompt me to buy a new HP or Dell. That appears to be the case for many people. While Hewlett-Packard and Dell racked up a combined $62.7 billion in sales last quarter, both companies sold fewer PCs as businesses and consumers put off purchases due to rising prices. "Total units were down 16% with Consumer PS [personal services] units down 19% and Commercial PS units down 14%," wrote HP in its recent earnings release. A waning appetite to upgrade PCs is bad news for HP, Dell, and rivals, especially since fixing the problem won't be easy due to mounting cost pressures, according to a Morgan Stanley research report shared with me. HP, Dell face PC sales headwind. In Hewlett-Packard's fiscal third quarter, revenue from consumer and commercial PC sales increased, but that was due to higher prices, not selling more computers. "Yes, you've got unit decline going on, which has been well built into our forecast and the industry forecast out there," said HP CFO Karen Parkhill at Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference in September. "The decline is more from the lower end of PCs." The impact on the lower end of the market has prompted management to pivot toward pricier machines. "While volume was down as expected, our continued prioritization of higher-value unit placements, repricing for higher commodity costs and services expansion more than offset the volume headwind," said Parkhill in August on the company's earnings conference call. That strategy may work only so long, given the long upgrade cycle and the fact that many more people buy at the lower rather than the higher price points. Unfortunately, the company doesn't expect demand for inexpensive PCs to rebound anytime soon. In September, HP filed a report with the SEC telling Wall Street to expect soft demand into next year: "Consistent with current third-party industry forecasts, HP's preliminary planning assumption is that industry-wide personal computer unit volumes decline roughly mid-single-digits in percentage terms in calendar year 2027." Unsurprisingly, HP's share price has fallen 16% from its September high. But HP isn't alone in feeling the shift. Dell has similarly seen headwinds from soft consumer demand, leading it to shift its focus to AI servers. "So one tangible example, we would have taken a decision in the springtime for seeing the PC market, particularly in consumer, was going to get squeezed a little bit. It's projected to be minus 18% to minus 20% on units," acknowledged CFO David Kennedy at last month's Goldman Sachs technology conference. The consumer boycott has everyone wondering how long the drag on the PC market will last. Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring took up the subject directly in his report, "Rising ASPs and Slowing Demand Pressure PCs Into 2027." "Windows 11 refresh demand and commercial pull-forward have abruptly slowed, consumer demand is even softer, and supply-chain shortages appear to beworsening - and with PC prices expected to continue climbing, we believe 4Q PCshipment Y/Y declines will deteriorate further," wrote Woodring. Surging PC prices have led to a major drop-off in consumer and enterprise demand. PC market tumbles as supply problems send prices soaring. Surging prices are the biggest reason PC buyers like me are on strike. Over $1 trillion is being spent this year on AI, according to Goldman Sachs, and much of that is going to high-end servers deployed increasingly in data centers. These servers feature top-of-the-line GPUs and ASICs from Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom, and they're packed with memory, including high-bandwidth memory from SK hynix, Micron and Samsung. The flood of money into hardware is taxing supply chains, driving prices up, and leading chipmakers to deprioritize chips designed for everyday machines, further increasing scarcity and pressuring prices. "Costs for AI server dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) roughly doubled during the first quarter of 2026, with an expected fourfold increase for the full year," wrote Deloitte in report entitled 'Why the memory chip crunch is greater than expected, and may not ease until 2029' in July. "Memory chip industry insiders and market analysts are calling this scarcity-driven surge in chip prices "RAMageddon." More Tech: The long and short of it is that HP, Dell, Acer, and others are spending much more money today to build their PCs than they did one year ago, which has forced them to raise average selling prices (ASPs). "We estimate 3Q global PC ASPs rose to over $1,200, nearly 40% above early 2025 prices, and expect pricing to rise even further as PC OEMs attempt to protect margins during a period of record inflation, with ASP per device reaching over $1,300 by mid-2027," wrote Morgan Stanley's Woodring. Morgan Stanley thinks the problem stretches into 2027. Higher prices aren't the only problem. Woodring also notes that enterprise buyers are shifting IT spending away from PC upgrades toward AI itself, and that middlemen are increasingly avoiding building inventory. "As a result, we forecast PC shipments deteriorating further in 4Q, with our new estimate calling for 28% Y/Y shipment declines," wrote Woodring. Worse, he says PC shipments' weakness will stretch into 2027, with calendar-year shipments falling 11% from 2026 levels. That's about 7% worse than the Wall Street consensus. The outlook is supported by the latest IDC research data, which shows Q3 shipments down 21% from one year ago, compared to just a 1% drip in the first six months of this year. "Channels are now worried about carrying too much inventory into a market where high prices are suppressing demand," wrote IDC research director for consumer devices Jitesh Ubrani. Morgan Stanley estimates HP and Dell saw PC unit sales drop 32% and 27%, respectively, in the third quarter. Woodring also believes PC makers may not be able to fully pass along their higher supply costs, which could drag on profits, leading him to issue a dour outlook for HP and rival Acer, which are more concentrated on less expensive computers. "This makes us incrementally more cautious on the entire PC complex, and would highlight HPQ (41% downside) and Acer (25% downside) as our highest-conviction global PC OEM underweights," said Woodring. Overall, Woording's HP stock price target is $19. As for Dell, he thinks it will hold up better than HP and Acer because it is more focused on higher-end machines and enterprise deals. He rates it "equal weight," with a stock price target of $499.

HP Experience AI: agentic AI platform adapts to customer intent. HP Inc. has launched HP Experience AI, an agentic AI platform on its website that adapts in real time to a visitor's inferred intent rather than showing a static page. What happened. HP Inc. has launched HP Experience AI, an agentic artificial intelligence platform built into its website that reshapes itself around what a visitor is trying to do. Rather than presenting a static page, the system is designed to interpret customer intent in real time and adapt the browsing experience accordingly, positioning HP's web presence as an active, AI-driven interface rather than a fixed digital storefront. The announcement, reported via HP's own newsroom, frames the platform as agentic - meaning it is intended to take initiative on a user's behalf, surfacing relevant information, products or support pathways based on inferred needs rather than requiring customers to navigate a conventional menu structure. Why it matters. Agentic AI deployed directly on a corporate website marks a shift from AI as a backend efficiency tool to AI as the primary interface layer between a brand and its customers. For HP, a company selling complex, configurable hardware to both consumers and enterprise buyers, an adaptive web experience could reduce the friction of self-directed research and shorten the path between intent and purchase or support resolution. More broadly, this points to a direction many large technology vendors are likely to explore: websites that behave less like document repositories and more like responsive agents. For experience leaders, the relevant question is less about the novelty of the technology and more about governance - how intent is inferred, how transparently that personalisation is disclosed, and how consistently it performs across the full range of customer journeys, not just the easiest ones. The renascence take. Adaptive, intent-driven web experiences sound seamless in theory, but the behavioral risk sits in what happens when the system infers wrong. A platform that reshapes itself around assumed intent can just as easily narrow a customer's options as widen them - and most users won't notice the difference between helpful personalisation and quiet gatekeeping. The real test for HP Experience AI isn't whether it can anticipate intent - it's whether customers retain an obvious, low-effort way to override the system when it guesses wrong. Agentic interfaces earn trust not through how often they're right, but through how gracefully they recover when they're not. Any organisation following HP down this path should design the "undo" and the human handoff before they design the cleverness. This briefing was written by its Newsdesk, synthesising reporting from the outlets below. Follow the links for the original coverage. Questions Renascence get on this topic. HP Experience AI is an agentic artificial intelligence platform built into HP Inc.'s website that interprets a visitor's intent in real time and reshapes the browsing experience accordingly, rather than presenting a fixed page layout. More in AI Stay ahead of CX Get the signal, not the noise. The stories shaping customer experience - plus the Journal and Experience Loom - in your inbox.

HP Inc. (HPQ) Stock: Climbs as HP Launches New AI PCs With NVIDIA. Tldr. Table of Contents * HPQ stock climbs 1.61% to $32.24 as HP expands its NVIDIA-powered AI PC lineup. * HP unveils new NVIDIA-powered Windows systems for consumers and enterprise users. * HP demonstrates its ZGX Fury workstation running Windows on NVIDIA GB300 hardware. * HP sets October 16 launch for OmniBook Ultra 16 and OmniBook X 14 AI laptops. * HP adds Perplexity features and a free Pro trial to eligible consumer devices. HP Inc. (HPQ) shares gained 1.61% to close at $32.24, supported by developments in the company's artificial intelligence portfolio. The stock advanced another 0.19% to $32.30 in after-hours trading. Meanwhile, HP expanded its NVIDIA-powered computer lineup and announced new Windows systems for consumers and businesses. HP expands NVIDIA AI portfolio with new Windows systems. HP introduced new computing products that support artificial intelligence tasks directly on personal computers and workstations. The expanded portfolio combines NVIDIA processors with Windows software to serve consumers, developers, and enterprise customers. Additionally, HP outlined plans to increase local processing capabilities across its hardware lineup. The announcement builds on HP's existing efforts to expand beyond traditional personal computers and printing products. HP now targets customers who need stronger computing performance for software development, content creation, and workplace applications. Consequently, the company has expanded its hardware offerings to support different computing requirements. HP also introduced new software features through its partnership with Perplexity. The integration allows users to search for information, complete tasks, and create content through supported consumer devices. Furthermore, HP plans to extend these services across eligible computers beginning in November 2026. HP demonstrates NVIDIA GB300 workstation running Windows. HP demonstrated Windows running on its ZGX Fury workstation powered by NVIDIA's GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra processor. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang presented the system during a Microsoft event. The demonstration marked HP's first public presentation of the workstation operating within the Windows environment. The ZGX Fury targets developers, researchers, data scientists, and businesses that require substantial computing capacity. Its design supports demanding applications, larger models, and multiple simultaneous requests within local computing environments. As a result, organizations can process sensitive workloads internally while maintaining greater control over their infrastructure. HP previously outlined its GB300 workstation plans during Computex earlier in 2026. The latest demonstration advances those plans by showing how the hardware operates with Microsoft's software platform. However, HP has not announced public pricing or a general release date for the workstation. HP sets October 16 release for new OmniBook AI pcs. HP plans to release two NVIDIA-powered OmniBook laptops on October 16, 2026, targeting users who require advanced computing performance. The OmniBook Ultra 16 will start at $3,199.99, while the OmniBook X 14 will cost $2,999.99. Both devices use NVIDIA RTX Spark technology to support local processing, graphics performance, and creative applications. The company will sell the OmniBook Ultra 16 through its website and Best Buy stores. Meanwhile, customers can purchase the OmniBook X 14 through HP, Costco, Micro Center, Walmart, and other retailers. These launches follow HP's September presentation of its RTX Spark-powered computers at the IFA technology exhibition. The new laptops combine processing power, graphics capabilities, and shared memory to handle demanding tasks without constant cloud access. HP will also offer eligible customers a free one-month Perplexity Pro trial beginning in November. The expansion strengthens HP's position in premium computing as manufacturers introduce more powerful Windows devices for artificial intelligence applications. Limited Time Offer Get 3 free stock ebooks. Discover top-performing stocks in AI, Crypto, and Technology with expert analysis. * Top 10 AI Stocks - Leading AI companies * Top 10 Crypto Stocks - Blockchain leaders * Top 10 Tech Stocks - Tech giants