Taking the Big Leap How Can the HR Function Get Started with AI?
I attended PwC’s Workday Tomorrow 2025 event, held in Frankfurt from March 25–27, as a speaker. The atmosphere crackled with knowledge-sharing and plans as the 50 attending HRIT leaders and professionals discussed how to leverage AI in terms of people processes.
IDC’s extensive interviews with HR leaders at the event revealed they are indeed keen to leverage AI for:
- Recruitment: CV prioritization, interview scheduling, candidate communication
- Performance Management: Summarization, feedback gathering, goal setting
- HR Assistants: HR help desk, transactional assistance
- Job Descriptions and Skills Management: Inference, automated skills surveys
As a Workday customer, you can gradually switch on the AI capabilities embedded in the functional areas to which you have subscribed. IDC, however, recommends that customers launch their AI journey with less complex use cases (e.g., “GenAI job description”) that can be switched on and tested for fit with your HRIT teams.
Each Workday client can turn on/off the AI functionality in their own tenants by way of configuration, including data contributions on a field level. Workday’s AI architecture allows customers to always retain control over their data within Workday.
To help customers adopt AI capabilities, Workday offers fact sheets for all available AI use cases in Workday Community. The vendor also offers a broad AI Masterclass to help organizations get started in adopting AI. The Masterclass aims to help HR and IT professionals deepen their understanding of AI technologies, including how to deploy and govern AI responsibly, and covers a range of concrete case studies.
The HR function is a business partner — but also a cost center. Some of the HR participants in Frankfurt discussed how HR can better establish its business value contribution to obtain resources and funding to work with AI. This requires HR to establish business cases with concrete financial ROI metrics to justify the investment. AI solutions that save significant time for employees and managers, for example, can have substantial benefits.
Comprehensive planning is required to execute such wide-ranging, transformational AI use cases. These are complex projects that demand organization, implementation, and funding. Successful project outcomes also require specialist skills to address legal topics, data security, change management, Workday configuration, and deep industry knowledge.
Workday Tomorrow 2025 offered attendees the opportunity to gain a better understanding of how consulting firms like PwC can support Workday customers to prepare, plan, and execute AI use cases within ongoing transformational programs.
How the AI Wave Will Impact the HR Function
Even if HR itself does nothing with AI, will HR be impacted by the AI deployed in the core business of organizations? (Hint: It will!)
A March 2025 IDC survey of 419 CEOs revealed that more than half (55%) believe AI will lead to fundamental business model changes in their organization in 3-5 years (IDC’s CEO Survey 2025; N = 419).
The survey showed that CEOs see a number of skills gaps impeding AI success in their organizations. Interestingly, the most important skills gap identified was teaching AI to regular business employees.
CEOs Identify Their Organization’s AI Skills Gaps
CEOs have turned or will turn to HR to help remedy this skills gap: IDC believes we will see extensive reskilling and upskilling efforts to create an AI-ready workforce. HR will also be tasked with recruiting, retaining, and developing scarce AI-related tech skills in security, AI governance, data management, development, and other areas.
Change management and communications skills will be much needed as organizations undergo difficult, tech-driven changes. Employees have a lot at stake: Some skills will lose value as AI agents take over certain tasks, and some job roles will change and result in new tasks. In Frankfurt, PwC expert Armin von Rohrscheidt talked about how – at least in a German context – involving workers’ councils early, fully, and transparently is the recommended approach.
Interesting HR Perspectives that Came to Light
- How does an organization train its workforce to become “AI-ready”?
- How can an organization prepare regular business users to work with conversational user interfaces, prompts, and agentic workflows?
- Are new training methods needed?
IDC believes that traditional linear elearning approaches will not suffice to bring about such skills. Instead, collaborative, social, experimental, and hybrid approaches are called for (a mix of real-time interactions and individual learning). Furthermore, learner progress and proficiency levels must be monitored as opposed to simple pass/no-pass quizzes.
Another discussion concerned how AI will impact the career progression of junior employees. Organizations are in the process of implementing agentic workflows so that basic administrative processes, or even longer-running processes, can be automated, with humans supervising the process as opposed to just being in the loop.
These basic processes have typically been performed by junior employees to help them “get their hands dirty” and “learn the ropes” of the organization. But if these entry-level processes will be performed by AI agents, how will junior employees gain an understanding of the basic workings of an organization?
This has been a theme for IDC’s Future of Work team. One hypothesis is that AI will not only automate basic tasks but will also assume a mentor’s role, enabling junior employees to explore simulated, experimental workflows and use this as a path to insights into core business processes.
Reflecting on Workday’s Expanded Partnership with PwC
Workday’s partnership with a major partner like PwC goes far beyond the traditional applications vendor + global systems integrator setup. As a key partner, PwC has a large number of certified consultants in the various Workday solutions and cloud tools, co-sells the solutions with Workday, and markets services capabilities at Workday events.
Today, however, PwC sells its own branded solutions, certified by Workday and built natively on the Workday Extend platform. Furthermore, these PwC solutions are sold on the Workday Marketplace. PwC co-markets and co-brands events with Workday, and Workday involves PwC in its multiyear product road maps.
This implies that PwC’s customer relationships in the Workday ecosystem have become truly multifaceted, spanning strategic consulting, project services, managed services, as well as subscriptions to a range of software-based products.
Selling software products requires relatively long-term and in-depth collaboration between Workday and a partner like PwC. If PwC creates a new product — for example, Sickness and Recovery Management — it is important that Workday is not planning to add such capabilities to its own HCM solution (within the next 24 months at least). There is no perpetual guarantee of free play, of course, but a certain time window must be guaranteed.
Final Thoughts
AI is not just another wave of technology to manage and roll out. It has massive transformational potential. It will permeate the business world whether we like it or not.
Any AI initiative will receive serious scrutiny from employees, senior stakeholders, unions, and regulators. However, if HR and IT concentrate on the best practices outlined at the Frankfurt conference — especially related to internal communications and change management — now is the time to get started.
Think outside of the box. AI is not a traditional tool rollout. Knowledge must be shared internally and among peers in other organizations. Network and iterate often. The future of the HR function is — without a doubt — linked to AI and automation.
IAM 2025: The Rise of the Machines
Identity and access management (IAM), and by extension, identity security, is one of the most pervasive and impactful challenges facing all European organizations today, from an operational and risk management perspective.
The targeting of users and credentials has been well documented through year after year of the major global threat reports, such as Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). Phishing attacks continue unabated as threat actors steal more and more credentials. Verizon’s 2025 DBIR report highlights compromised credentials as the most common initial access vector among non-error breaches.
The challenge for many organizations is dealing with the sheer volume, velocity, and variety of IAM-related events. Take a workforce of a few thousand permanent employees that need access to an estate of a few hundred applications. Add in a few hundred temporary workers, partners, and contractors that need access to specific systems and applications on a constrained basis. Then add in a range of entitlement levels for what all of those users — permanent, temporary, and external — can do in each application. Remember also that the workforce is in constant flux, with new joiners, movers, and leavers. To prevent exposure, any changes to the access rights and entitlements of those users must be put into effect immediately when a transition takes place.
The outcome is a volume of IAM events and processes that simply cannot be managed without automation.
And that’s just the humans.
Organizations have become aware that there is an even bigger and faster-growing set of identities that they need to manage as a matter of increasing urgency: the non-humans.
The Rise of Non-Human Identities
Some non-human identity (NHI) types have been around for years, such as service accounts. These are already a concern, since many of them are entitled to execute privileged actions, which typically need a higher level of control to safeguard data and processes. Furthermore, nested privileges enabled by multiple overlapping or intersecting service accounts can obfuscate over-provisioning of access, which can be a major security risk.
Service accounts are just one category of NHIs that merit attention, however. The growing list includes device identities, cloud workloads, bots, APIs, and, increasingly, AI agents. Some of these NHIs are relatively long-lived and fixed, others are fast moving and ephemeral. Visibility into the creation and provisioning of some NHIs can be extremely limited for the identity, IT, and security professionals tasked with managing them. So how should organizations address this growing challenge and contain the risk? Can existing IAM and identity security tools be co-opted to manage the NHI pool?
According to preliminary data from IDC’s EMEA Security Technologies and Strategies Survey, 2025, more than a third of EMEA organizations are already grappling with this challenge. The short answer to the questions above is that existing tools can probably address some of the requirements of NHI IAM and security (but to adequately manage the risk, a dedicated approach is going to be required).
AI Agents: A Complex Challenge
If we take AI agents as an example, these are probably one of the most complex and fastest-growing NHI categories. According to IDC’s March 2025 Future Enterprise Resiliency and Spending (FERS) Survey, 38% of European organizations are already investing in agentic AI, with a further 43% conducting initial testing and proofs of concept. IDC’s 2025 Worldwide Future of Work Predictions report projects that by 2027, agentic AI workflows will impact at least 40% of knowledge work in G2000 organizations.
Functionally, AI agents can act like service accounts in some aspects; at the same time, they share some behaviors with human identities. They can also be a force multiplier for risk. In an ordinary business process, a human user might conduct actions that call a handful of APIs (another at-risk NHI category, since API access is often unsecured). When we enable AI agents to act on our behalf, they may be calling hundreds of APIs, creating a flywheel effect that multiplies the risk.
This brings in a bigger topic of security by design, which is as relevant here as it is in any other sphere of security. As development teams build agentic AI services, it is critical that security is built in from the start. It’s far more complex and costly to add on once agents are live. This means building in seamless and secure authentication requirements before a user or an agent is able to do anything; ensuring secure and vaulted credentials for API tokens; and applying fine-grained and dynamically updated authorization for permissions that an agent needs to complete a task (and nothing more).
From an IAM perspective, these are some of the key building blocks to ensure that AI agents don’t become an NHI risk; however, further controls and guardrails will be needed. For other NHI categories, the requirements may be different, and organizations should conduct risk assessments for each category individually before taking the necessary measures to protect them.
Like all IAM challenges, the NHI issue is not insurmountable. However, organizations should avoid the historic IAM mistakes of siloed approaches and short-term fixes and make sure that appropriate security controls are built in, from the beginning, wherever NHIs are active within their systems. What’s required is a strategic, granular, and risk-based approach that addresses IAM for all NHIs before they become embedded in all our business processes.
A Review of the Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 16IAH10 with Intel Core Ultra 9 285H and the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 15ILL9 with Intel Core Ultra 9 288V
Following the September 2024 launch of the Core Ultra 200V Series ‘Lunar Lake’ mobile-focused CPUs aimed at extreme mobility and battery life use cases, Intel introduced the new Intel Core Ultra 200H ‘Arrow Lake’ processors aimed at mobile computing for businesses, creators, and gaming enthusiasts at CES in January 2025.
These latest Intel Core Ultra mobile processors boast advanced AI features, improved efficiency, and enhanced performance over previous generation mobile CPUs.
The Intel Core Ultra 288V CPU features four Performance cores and four Efficiency cores, a second generation neural processing unit (NPU) with up to 48 trillion operations per second (TOPS), and Intel Arc Graphics 140V with eight Xe2-cores delivering up to 67 TOPS, for over 100 total system TOPS.
The Intel Core Ultra 285H CPU includes six Performance cores, eight efficiency cores, and two low-power cores, an NPU with up to 13 TOPS, and Intel Arc 140T graphics with eight Xe Matrix Extension (XMX)-enhanced Xe-cores capable of up to 77 TOPS, for just under 100 system TOPS. Across the platform, these processors achieve up to 99 TOPS by utilizing the GPU, CPU, and NPU.
Intel provided IDC with samples of the Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 (model 16IAH10) featuring the 16-core Intel Core Ultra 9 285H, and the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 (model 15ILL9), featuring the eight-core Intel Core Ultra 9 288V. Both these thin and light notebooks are solid options for business, content creation, light gaming, and other demanding tasks, but target quite different performance, battery life, and user workload requirements.
The Notebook Specifications
The two Intel Core Ultra 9 200 series CPUs take quite different approaches in terms of design. The Intel Core Ultra 9 288V is composed of two chiplet tiles. The largest tile is the CPU, NPU, and GPU complex together with the memory controllers, while the smaller input/output (IO) tile handles functions such as USB and PCIe connectivity. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285H, on the other hand, features four tiles, with separate CPU, GPU, SOC with NPU and two low-power Efficient cores, and IO tiles.
One of other big differences between the two different CPUs is that the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H notebook comes with 32GB of LPDDR5-8533 RAM soldered to the motherboard, while the Intel Core Ultra 288V has 32GB of the same speed RAM directly integrated into the CPU package itself, allowing for lower power and latency memory operations (compared to having to go off package to the motherboard for memory transactions).
The displays are both high definition (HD) – the Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 features a 16-inch 2.8K OLED panel with a resolution of 2880×1800, offering 500 nits of typical brightness and up to 1100 nits of peak brightness. It covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, has a 120Hz refresh rate, and supports DisplayHDR True Black 1000. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 features a 15-inch IPS screen, also 2880×1800.
Connectivity options for both include Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, Thunderbolt 4, HDMI 2.1, USB-A, and USB-C; however, the Idea Pad Pro 5 also has an SD card reader. Audio is delivered through stereo speakers optimized with Dolby Atmos. Although both platforms support Thunderbolt 5, the feature is absent from both laptops. Lenovo’s reasoning behind this choice remains uncertain, but it misses the chance to leverage higher bandwidth for quicker data transfer, superior display capabilities, accelerated charging, and greater compatibility.
For video calls and security, the system features a Full HD 1080p camera with an infrared sensor, privacy shutter, and time-of-flight sensor.
The Laptop Look and Feel
Both notebooks are built for rugged mobility. They boast a sleek and durable design with an aluminum top and bottom, providing a premium and sturdy feel. The surfaces are anodized and sandblasted for a smooth finish, and their color is Luna Grey, giving them a modern and elegant look.
The keyboards are backlit, making it easy to type in low-light conditions. They feature a traditional layout with comfortable key travel and responsiveness. The touchpads are buttonless glass surface multi-touch touchpads, supporting Precision TouchPad technology.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 weighs in at 1.46kg (3.2lbs) and is a true thin and light notebook. The Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 weighs 1.72kg (3.79lbs), which makes it relatively lightweight and portable, considering its powerful specifications and large display. This combination of robust chassis, comfortable keyboard, high-resolution screens, slim profiles, and light weight makes both a great choice for work and play — but the differences mean that the products are targeted at quite different use cases. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 with the Intel Core Ultra 0 288V is focused on all-day productivity and mobility, while the Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 with the Intel Core Ultra 285H is geared more toward supporting high-performance mobile workloads such as content creation or design and rendering activities.
The Intel Core Ultra 9 288V
Built on TSMC’s N3B process, the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V features four Performance cores and four low-power Efficiency cores coupled with 12MB of cache, and is targeted at all-day efficiency performance for sustained productivity. Single-thread performance is competitive, with the Performance cores reaching up to 5.1GHz and the Efficient cores up to 3.7GHz.
The Intel Core Ultra 9 266V with an integrated NPU at 48 peak TOPS supports Intel Deep Learning (DL) Boost and various AI software frameworks such as OpenVINO, WindowsML, ONNX RT, DirectML, and WebNN. This makes it an excellent choice for AI and machine learning workloads. The processor’s base power is 30W, with a maximum turbo power of 37W, allowing it to power the thinnest and lightest notebooks with efficient performance all day.
The Intel Arc 140V GPU
When it comes to graphics, the Intel Arc 140V graphics features eight Xe2 cores that boost up to 2.05GHz. Built on the second generation Xe graphics architecture that is also featured in the well-received Intel Arc B580 series of discrete GPUs, it is a major redesign compared with the original Xe +graphics cores.
The Intel Arc 140V GPU boasts deeper caches, overhauled Ray Tracing Units (RTUs), and two Render Slices, each containing four Xe2-cores (for eight in total). It fully supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, including hardware ray tracing and mesh shading, ensuring competitive graphics performance.
The Intel Core Ultra 9 285H
Built on TSMC’s N3B lithography, with a total of 16 cores, the Intel Core Ultra 9 Processor 285H is a powerhouse designed for high-performance mobile computing. With six Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, and two low-power Efficient cores, this processor is built to handle a wide range of tasks with ease. The Performance cores can reach a maximum turbo frequency of 5.4GHz, ensuring adequate performance for demanding applications, while the Efficient cores and low-power Efficient cores provide a balance of power and efficiency for regular tasks. The processor also boasts a 24MB cache, which helps to speed up data access and improve overall system responsiveness.
In addition to its impressive core configuration, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H supports Intel DL Boost and various AI software frameworks such as OpenVINO, WindowsML, ONNX RT, DirectML, and WebNN. This makes it an excellent choice for AI and machine learning workloads. The processor’s base power is 45W with a maximum turbo power of 115W, ensuring that it can deliver high performance when needed while maintaining energy efficiency.
The Intel Arc 140T GPU
The Intel Core Ultra 285H processor, featuring the built-in Intel Arc 140T GPU, is a standout in this generation. Built on the enhanced Xe LPG+ architecture, it offers a significant 20% performance boost over its predecessor integrated in the Intel Core Ultra 100H series, according to Intel. This uplift is particularly noticeable in AI workloads, ray tracing, and gaming, whether you are at home or on the go.
The Intel Arc 140T GPU boasts a robust configuration with double the L2 cache (8MB dedicated to the GPU) and two Render Slices, each containing four Xe-cores (totaling eight Xe-cores). It fully supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, including hardware ray tracing and mesh shading, ensuring top-tier graphics performance.
Each Xe-core is equipped with 16 Xe Vector Engines for SIMD8 width execution. The LPG+ architecture introduces XMX, which supports INT4, INT8, FP16, and BF16 data types, delivering exceptional performance for AI workloads and Intel XE Super Sampling (XeSS) AI game upscaling. XeSS leverages these capabilities to provide high-fidelity frames close to native quality with significantly higher frames per second (FPS).
Additionally, the LPG+ architecture includes a specialized RTU designed for real-time ray tracing, offering realistic lighting and reflections. Each RTU features an enhanced traversal pipeline with double the performance and a ray-triangle intersection unit capable of performing 12 box intersection tests per clock cycle.
Media and Display
The Xe Media Engine supports various codecs, bit depths, and chroma subsampling. It even supports HEVC 4:2:2 encoding and decoding, a format commonly used in professional cameras. Additionally, it ensures reliable 4K video playback from platforms like YouTube and Netflix and supports the modern AV1 codec. The engine can handle up to 8K 10-bit high-dynamic range (HDR) video workloads at 30 FPS across dual Multi-Format Codec Engines (MFXs), and 8K 10-bit HDR playback at 60 FPS on a single MFX.
The Display Engine supports a single monitor with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz with HDR, utilizing the latest HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 2.1 standards. It can also manage up to four external monitors at 4K resolution with HDR at 60Hz, providing a high-quality viewing experience. The integrated panel supports a refresh rate of up to 120Hz at WQUXGA (3840×2400) resolution, thanks to its eDP1.4b support.
Benchmarks
PCMark 10
PCMark 10 is a comprehensive benchmarking tool that covers the wide variety of tasks performed in the modern workplace. Web browsing, videoconferencing, spreadsheet and word processing, photo and video editing, and rendering and visualization are some of the tasks tested by the tool.
The IdeaPad Pro 5 with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H ‘Arrow Lake’ CPU achieved a score of 7,854, outperforming 91% of all results produced by PCMark 10. This is a strong performance that shows the productivity-focused performance advantage of the extra cores in the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H compared to the all-day efficient performance approach of the four Performance cores and the four Efficiency cores in the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V ‘Lunar Lake’ CPU, which scored a still very competitive 6,968 but at significantly lower power draw with much improved battery life.
The Procyon AI Text Generation Benchmark
The UL Procyon AI Text Generation Benchmark, developed with insights from top AI vendors, aims to simplify and standardize the evaluation of local AI performance, especially for large language models (LLMs). It assesses performance using models such as Phi-3.5-mini, Mistral-7B, Llama-3.1-8B, and Llama-2-13B23. This benchmark measures how effectively a device handles local LLM inference tasks, like utilizing an on-device AI assistant for routine office tasks.
We conducted the test using the Intel Arc 140T and ARC 140V powered with OpenVINO 2024.5.0 as the AI inference engine. The results demonstrate that, in the realm of AI, performance depends on more than just raw power. The 140V outperforms the 140T through its enhanced architecture, innovative features, and superior efficiency.
The Procyon AI Image Generation Benchmark
The UL Procyon AI Image Generation Benchmark, developed in collaboration with key industry members, provides a consistent and accurate workload for measuring the inference performance of on-device AI accelerators, such as high-end discrete GPUs. This benchmark ensures fair and comparable results across various hardware.
We conducted the demanding Stable Diffusion XL (FP16) test using OpenVINO as the AI inference engine to evaluate performance of the integrated GPUs given the minimum requirement of 16GB of RAM. The Intel Arc 140T integrated into the Core Ultra 9 285H achieved an overall AI image generation score of 363, with a total time of 1649.551 seconds and an image generation speed of 103.097 seconds per image. The Arc 140V graphics integrated into the Core Ultra 9 288V scored 345, achieving 95% of the performance of the Intel Arc 140T, but at significantly lower system power draw.
We also tested image generation using the integrated NPU. Here, the IdeaPad Pro 5 with Core Ultra 9 285H and the first generation Intel NPU architecture with 13 AI TOPS peak performance, scored 843 compared to the score of 2,713 achieved by the Yoga Slim 7 15 with the second generation Intel NPU architecture, with up to 48 peak AI TOPS. This increase of over 200% in inferencing performance highlights the rapid increase in NPU hardware and software performance that the second generation of NPUs are able to deliver in the Microsoft Copilot+ PC category.
Blender Benchmark
Blender Benchmark version 4.3.0 was used to assess the Intel Arc 140T GPU’s rendering performance. With a score of 761, the GPU’s performance ranked among the top 35% of benchmarks running the same workload.
Considering the Intel Arc 140T is an entry-level integrated GPU with just eight Xe-cores, its performance was unexpectedly impressive. It ranked nearly in the top third of all results, significantly surpassing our initial expectation of it being just above the bottom third.
With a higher socket power budget, the Xe Intel Arc 140T also outperformed the Xe2 Intel Arc 140V graphics integrated into the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V in the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15:
Cinebench Performance
Cinebench is a useful indicator of a highly parallel multi-thread workload that can stress system throughput and performance. We tested both notebooks using the well-established Cinebench R23 as well as the still fairly new Cinebench 2024.
For Cinebench R23, the productivity-focused Intel Core Ultra 9 285H in the Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5, with 16 cores including six Performance cores, managed almost double the multi-thread performance of the Core Ultra 9 288V with eight cores in total and four Performance cores.
However, the Core Ultra 9 288V, with a design focus on efficient performance, managed 60% better performance per watt on the multi-threaded workload with a turbo boost power of 37W, compared to 115W for the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H.
For Cinebench 2024, the story was similar, with the Core Ulta 9 285H again outperforming the Core Ultra 9 288V by 80% in ultimate multi-threaded performance, but with the Core Ultra 9 288V again having the advantage in performance efficiency with 72% better performance per watt in this test at maximum turbo power.
The Procyon Battery Life Benchmark
The video playback test uses the Microsoft Films & TV app included with Windows to measure battery life. The benchmark plays a HD video file in full-screen mode until the battery is depleted.
In our test, the Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 achieved a video playback battery life of nine hours and three minutes. The battery level started at 100% and ended at 3%. The maximum detected brightness was 80%, while the minimum detected brightness was 56%. The power plan was ‘balanced.’
This test highlighted just how far Intel has progressed with battery life and efficiency, with the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V, based on the ‘Lunar Lake’ architecture, achieving 17 hours and 22 minutes of battery life.
Gaming Performance
The Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 showed entry-level gaming performance across various titles. In The Shadow of the Tomb Raider, it achieved an average of 53 FPS on medium settings with XeSS set to balanced, at 1920×1200 resolution.
Turning to the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15, the Intel Core Ultra 9 achieved 62 FPS on average, highlighting the advances that Intel has made with the Xe2-based iGPU.
Looking at some other games for the Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5:
- For The Callisto Protocol, the laptop managed 37 FPS on the lowest settings, with AMD FSR2 set to performance.
- Fortnite ran smoothly at 90 FPS on the lowest graphical preset, with XeSS set to performance. Switching the rendering mode from DX12 to Performance Mode, generally used by competitive gamers, boosted the frame rate to 150 FPS on average.
- In Cyberpunk 2077, the built-in benchmark showed 31 FPS on average with the low ray tracing preset and Intel XeSS 1.3 set to auto. Disabling ray tracing and using the low preset increased the frame rate to 51 FPS.
Enabling ray tracing again, but with AMD FSR 3 set to performance and FSR 3 frame generation enabled, resulted in 58 FPS on average.
IDC Opinion and Conclusion
Both these Lenovo notebooks are sleek, solid, and stylish. They offer a premium look and feel, combined with professional-grade performance, excellent graphics, and lightweight mobility. Features like fast charging, long-lasting battery, and consistent fast responsiveness further enhance their appeal, making them ideal choice for work, productivity, and even some play. However, they do this in different ways to suit different use cases and ways of working.
The Intel Core Ultra 9 288V in the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 is optimized for efficient performance, with great single-thread performance provided by four Performance cores that enable snappy responsiveness with lightly threaded applications. Meanwhile, the four low-power Efficient cores greatly boost battery life for background or less demanding tasks and media playback. Salespeople will appreciate its lightweight and durable design, making it ideal for trade shows and showroom demos. Executives will value the long battery life, which allows them to check spreadsheets, browse the internet, or watch media during long flights without concern.
For more demanding applications featuring many threads, such as running complex calculations, managing heavy spreadsheets with numerous formulas, or designing marketing materials and presentations, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H with six Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, and two low-power Efficient cores provides extra processing grunt at the expense of higher overall power consumption and shorter battery life.
The standout aspect of our personal experience was the impressive speed for everyday use of both systems. This is largely thanks to the new Performance Core architecture as well as the ultra-fast LPDDR5-8533 memory and well-designed memory controller, which enhance overall system performance. This level of engineering showcases Intel’s expertise and capabilities for mobile processors. Another positive point is that both notebooks operate nearly silent almost all the time, adding to the overall pleasant user experience. Even when stress-tested or running games, the fan noise was not overly intrusive, maintaining around 35dB.
The second generation of Intel Core Ultra processors shows marked improvements in graphics performance and efficiency. The improved Xe LPG+ architecture is evident, especially in productivity, as the Intel Arc 140T demonstrated nearly double the performance of its predecessor, which was integrated in the previous generation Intel Core Ultra 9 185H in various workloads. The Intel Arc 140V similarly shows major improvements in overall performance and responsiveness and, in many aspects, is now class leading for mobile x86 processors. Intel’s engineering innovation allows integrated GPUs to leverage up to 16GB of system memory, which is a smart move. Models like Stable Diffusion XL are making notable progress in productivity applications, especially in marketing, advertising, and content creation. Due to VRAM limitations, this model will not even run on many more powerful discrete GPUs that have 8 or 12GB of VRAM.
In terms of gaming, both these notebooks are capable of supporting entry-level gaming, particularly when optimizing settings and utilizing upscaling technologies. This should get even better in the near future when XeSS 2 gets more widely adopted, with two groundbreaking new features: XeSS Frame Generation and Xe Low Latency. Combined with XeSS Super Resolution, gaming on integrated graphics will run smoother and at higher frame rates.
Related Research
Intel and AMD Announce the First x86-Based Copilot+ Capable Chips as Next-Generation AI PC Race with Qualcomm Heats Up
Exploring the Intel Core Ultra 200V Series Architecture and Innovations
Connected Ecosystems and the Need for Greater Partner Intelligence
Technology partners help bridge ecosystems. IDC’s 2024 EMEA Partner Survey sheds light on some of the underlying dynamics. For instance, 2 in 5 partners surveyed (41%) said they have a relationship with AWS. Of those AWS partners, 84% said they also work with Microsoft, while 23% partner with Red Hat and 15% have a relationship with ServiceNow.
At a global level, IDC’s Channel Partner Ecosystem (CPE) Database shows how the ecosystems of major cloud and software providers overlap to differing degrees, highlighting the need for different approaches across players.
The chart below demonstrates partner network overlap. Each column represents the degree of overlap between the provider on the row and the provider on the column. The darker the color, the more the overlap. For example, the analysis of ServiceNow’s partner network (column 7) shows a greater overlap with Salesforce than with Workday.
Given the rise of connected ecosystems, insights like these aren’t just interesting stats but hold practical and increasingly strategic value in today’s tech landscape. Think about the potential of accessing the list of common partners across vendors in the map — and getting detailed information in seconds.
Links across technology portfolios and partner networks fuel opportunities for vendors and bring enhanced value to customers. The IT industry has seen a sustained rise of the “platform paradigm” that enables connectedness and modularity across infrastructure, applications, data, and more. This requires architectures that allow technologies to integrate with and layer on top of one another. This trend is fueling growth in alliances and ecosystem engagement.
Customers benefit by being able to run integrated tech stacks that match their needs and requirements. For example, an organization may choose to run SAP on Microsoft Cloud, or may leverage Red Hat OpenShift to manage hybrid environments. Approved partner solutions from SAP Store extend the functionality of the core application, while Microsoft Azure provides native integrations with data warehouse solutions like Snowflake and Databricks.
The value of an integrated technology stack based on customer choice will increase significantly with the growing adoption of AI, which depends on contextually relevant, high-quality data collected across different systems and workloads.
Vendors are supporting these increasingly connected, platform-based strategies through new technology alliances, by building out their own ecosystems, and by connecting to others. A key component in bringing these alliances and connected ecosystems to life is the integration of IT/technology partners such as systems integrators, managed service providers, and value-added resellers.
Understanding partner capabilities and relationships is key to managing the entire partner life cycle. IDC offers complementary support for partner engagement strategies, including:
• The IDC CPE Database consolidates information on more than 600,000 partners worldwide on their capabilities, business models, relationships with vendors, and more. The data-driven partner intelligence we provide enables companies to compress the time and effort needed to recruit new partners, evaluate their current ecosystem, and benchmark against competitors’ ecosystems.
• The syndicated and custom research of IDC’s Partnering Practice specializes in understanding the ecosystem of technology partners and their engagement with vendors and customers. Our team of dedicated analysts offers thought leadership and advice through quantitative and qualitative insights on the global and regional levels.
Get In Touch with Us
- Andreas Storz, Senior Research Manager, IDC
- Gabriele Roberti, Director, Data & Analytics, IDC