While most of the attention in the AI race is focused on model builders and cloud platforms, Lenovo connects with millions of users more closely than most companies. As global leading PC manufacturer by volumeLenovo ships tens of millions of devices every year. What it chooses to send, connect, and integrate can directly impact how AI appears in many everyday situations.
That’s what made Lenovo’s announcement at CES today so noteworthy. On Tuesday, during a glitzy event at The Sphere in Las Vegas, Qira, a multi-device AI system assistant designed to run on Lenovo laptops and Motorola phones, was unveiled. It’s Lenovo’s most ambitious AI venture yet and a infrequent look at how the global hardware giant is thinking about deeper AI integration.
Jeff Snow, head of AI products at Lenovo, told me how the Qira tie-up came about, why the company intentionally avoids a single exclusive AI partnership, and what he’s learned from past experiments like Moto AI and the Microsoft Recall debacle.
Qira emerged from a serene but significant internal reorganization less than a year ago, according to Snow. Lenovo pulled its AI teams out of individual hardware units like PCs, tablets and phones and centralized them into a recent software group that runs across the company.
For a company long optimized for hardware SKUs and supply chains, the move marked a shift toward putting artificial intelligence at the forefront. “We wanted built-in, cross-device intelligence that works with you throughout the day, learns from your interactions and can act on your behalf,” Snow said. He mentioned that while flying to CES, he used the Qira model on the device to assist him workshop how to discuss news in meetings based on notes and documents on his computer.
“We wanted to have built-in, cross-device intelligence that… learns from your interactions and can act on your behalf.”
Qira is not built around one flagship AI model. Instead, it is modular. Under the hood, it combines local models on the device with cloud-based models anchored by Microsoft and OpenAI infrastructure, which can be accessed via Azure. An AI Stability diffusion model is also integrated, along with links to application-specific partners such as Notion and Perplexity.
“We didn’t want to commit ourselves to one model forever,” Snow said. “This space is moving too fast. Different tasks require different trade-offs in performance, quality and cost.”
This stance flies in the face of pressure from major artificial intelligence labs, many of which would be elated to become the exclusive intelligence layer for a company of Lenovo’s reach. According to Lenovo, optionality is more crucial, especially given its control over one of the largest distribution channels for consumer computers in the world.
Snow previously worked on Moto AI, Motorola’s assistant, which he said was initially met with great engagement. More than half of Motorola users tried it, but the durability was not good. He said too much of the experience resembled suggestion-based chat features that people might already be using elsewhere.
“It took us away from competing with chatbots,” Snow said. “Qira is about things that chatbots can’t do, like continuity, context, and acting directly on the device.”
Cost pressure looms over all of this.
Lenovo also paid particular attention to the backlash surrounding Microsoft’s recall feature. Snow said Qira was designed from the beginning with optional memory, persistent pointers and see-through user control. Context acquisition is optional. The recording is observable. Nothing is collected quietly.
Cost pressure looms over all of this. Memory prices are rising as AI demand strains supply chains, and analysts expect PC prices to follow suit. Snow said Qira doesn’t raise the baseline system requirements for PCs, but runs best on higher-end computers with more RAM. Lenovo is working to limit local models to smaller memory sizes, such as 16 gigabytes of RAM, without compromising the experience.
Strategically, Lenovo sees Qira as both a maintenance play and a hedge against hardware commoditization. In the tiny term, he hopes that tighter integration of laptops and phones will encourage customers to stay in the Lenovo ecosystem. Longer term, Snow created Qira as a way to differentiate Lenovo devices when specifications alone are no longer enough.