Can an older laptop get Copilot+ with an update?

No — the 40 TOPS NPU is a hardware requirement. Software updates cannot add it.

Is a MacBook a Copilot+ PC?

No. Copilot+ is a Windows certification. Macs run Apple Intelligence on their own Neural Engine instead.

What is the cheapest Copilot+ PC?

Snapdragon X and Ryzen AI 300 laptops start under $1,000 — see our under-$1,000 and under-$1,500 rankings.

Published 2026-09-27 · Last updated 2026-09-27

What are the Copilot+ PC requirements?

The short answer

A Copilot+ PC requires an NPU with 40+ TOPS, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB+ SSD. The NPU is the hard requirement — no amount of GPU power substitutes. All Snapdragon X, Intel Lunar Lake / Core Ultra X, and Ryzen AI 300+ laptops qualify; older Intel/AMD chips without a 40 TOPS NPU do not.

Key numbers

Copilot+ floor: 40+ NPU TOPS, 16GB RAM, 256GB storage.
Qualifying platforms: Snapdragon X/X2, Intel Lunar Lake / Core Ultra X, AMD Ryzen AI 300/400.
GPU TOPS do not count toward Copilot+ — the NPU is mandatory.

Microsoft's certification floor is 40 TOPS of NPU throughput. That single requirement is what separates 'AI PC' marketing from an actual Copilot+ machine — features like Recall, Cocreator in Paint, and live translation run on the NPU and simply do not ship on sub-40-TOPS hardware.

The three qualifying silicon families in 2026: Qualcomm Snapdragon X / X2 (45–80 TOPS), Intel Lunar Lake and Core Ultra X (40–50 TOPS), and AMD Ryzen AI 300/400 (50–60 TOPS). Apple Silicon Macs are not Copilot+ devices — they run Apple's own on-device AI stack instead.

Buying advice: if a laptop is marketed as an 'AI laptop' but the spec sheet does not state NPU TOPS, it is likely a pre-2024 design. Every laptop on our best lists is verified at 40+ TOPS.

Go deeper

Verified against our benchmark dataset and testing methodology. Facts as of 2026-09-27.