HP stuffs OpenAI LLM into new laptops in bid for small biz • The Register

HP is betting big on AI-powered productivity with the launch of HP IQ, a new local AI and collaboration application designed to make its business laptops stand out in an increasingly crowded market. The printer profiteer announced HP IQ on Tuesday, positioning it as a comprehensive intelligence layer that stretches across its devices and comes to life in its AI PCs.

What is HP IQ?

HP IQ comprises three main elements: an LLM you can chat with or grant access to documents, a meeting summarizer, and HP NearSense, which enables seamless file sharing with coworkers in your vicinity or automatic login to meeting room HP Poly conferencing systems.

"We see a big opportunity to help people thrive more in the workplace," Matt Brown, head of product for HP IQ, told The Register. "And to do that we're creating this layer of intelligence that will stretch across our devices and really come to life in our AI PCs and make them more valuable than ever before and provide a really powerful model right there inside the PC."

Hardware Requirements and Availability

The system requires one of HP's new 2026 EliteBook or ProBook models designated as an "AI PC" with at least 24 GB of RAM. The company plans to expand to other HP notebooks, desktops, and Poly Studio Video Bars by the northern summer, with new HP IQ devices coming out in the second half of the year.

An early access program is set to kick off later this northern spring, though the company hasn't specified exact dates. HP also plans to make HP IQ compatible with Android devices in the near future, allowing local file sharing and conferencing features to work on millions of phones.

Local AI Capabilities

HP IQ uses OpenAI's gpt-oss-20b model for local AI processing. In demonstrations, an HP representative uploaded a sensitive document to a PC and asked the IQ bot to analyze it, then requested help writing an overview of a board meeting. The system handled both tasks quickly and with great detail.

To access more recent current data such as weather or stock quotes, HP IQ polls the Internet, though IT departments can set policies to shut this off. The gpt-oss-20b model was trained in September 2025, and Brown acknowledged that HP must keep updating the model to stay competitive.

Meeting Recording and Privacy Concerns

The meeting agent portion of HP IQ allows users to record in-person meetings using their laptop's microphones and then generate action items and summaries. Users can ask questions like "what were some of the top concerns shared by the team" based on the recorded content.

When The Register raised privacy concerns, Brown said HP recommends that anyone recording coworkers should follow best practice and ask all meeting participants for permission first. He also noted that online meetings are routinely recorded these days. However, HP IQ does not store audio from recordings nor make full transcripts available, which might actually be useful features for some users.

The Register notes that if you attend a meeting in which someone is recording you with HP IQ, you won't be aware of it unless you can see their screen.

NearSense Proximity Features

HP NearSense currently offers two main capabilities but will eventually have more. First, it can show you a list of coworkers who are in the same room as you and allow you to send them files just by drag and drop - essentially catching up with the AirDrop feature that macOS has offered for years.

The system can also log you into meetings or start a meeting on HP Poly conferencing hardware in the same room. HP reps said the technology uses Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and your microphone to detect whether users are in the same room as a Poly conferencing device, with accuracy so precise that if you're standing just outside the glass door of a room, it will not register you.

A part of the setup process involves room mapping. HP plans to add more proximity-based features in the future, such as the ability to print to nearby IQ-enabled printers, pair with headsets that are close to you, and cast a PC's screen to adjacent displays or conference room screens.

Market Positioning and Competition

"Every PC OEM is trying to do their own thing," Anshel Sag, an analyst with Moor Insights, told The Register. "HP's approach seems to be very focused on productivity and I think they've messaged it in a way that sounds enterprise focused, but I think it's more SMB than enterprise."

Sag emphasized that HP must keep updating the model to stay competitive and that smaller businesses, rather than large enterprises, will be the first to take advantage of the tools. He said HP went with gpt-oss-20b because it was likely the best local model at the time the company froze development, but predicted the company could swap it if a better model comes along.

"I think there's some really interesting things that they can do with document scanning and meeting notes and things like that could really enable people to be more productive and have a better PC experience," he said. "But I still think there's a lot more that they could do to be useful and I think this is just the first step."

The Bigger Question

The launch of HP IQ raises an obvious question: why not just install your own LLM models using tools such as Ollama? Could you not accomplish many of these tasks with other tools that are not HP-specific?

Brown argued that HP IQ adds additional capabilities, the ability to process things locally and securely right on the PC, and ties into other devices used in the office in ways that other tools don't. However, for users comfortable with open-source alternatives, the value proposition may be less clear.

HP has committed to a three-year roadmap for the product, suggesting the company sees this as a long-term play in the AI PC market rather than a quick experiment. Whether HP IQ will be enough to differentiate its business laptops in an increasingly competitive landscape remains to be seen, but the company is clearly betting that integrated, easy-to-use AI will be a key selling point for small and medium-sized businesses looking to boost productivity without the complexity of managing multiple AI tools.