Lenovo at CES 2026: PC becomes an intelligent machine, Qira is born

The real bet is Qira, it is the most ambitious piece of the Lenovo puzzle and also the riskiest.It is not a voice assistant. It is not a chatbot. Qira is an ambient, system-integrated AI. It lives between Lenovo and Motorola PCs, tablets and smartphones. It does not open. It does not launch. It promises to be present and integrated. The promise is strong: total continuity. You change devices, you change context, but AI remembers what you were doing. It updates you if you are absent. It suggests your next step. It writes with you, summarises for you, listens for you. Lenovo talks about three pillars: presence, perception, action.

In practice: Qira understands context, interprets intentions, acts autonomously. All with a hybrid architecture, where much of the processing remains on the device. Privacy-first, they say. Lenovo Qira is designed with privacy by design. Its hybrid AI architecture prioritises on-device processing to keep personal data local, while secure cloud services extend functionality with robust guarantees and user control. Every aspect of the Lenovo Qira experience is designed to be safe, ethical and responsible.

The rollout starts in 2026. Gradual. Prudent. Because the challenge here is not technical, but cultural. Convincing users to trust an ever-present AI is much harder than launching a new laptop.Qira is Lenovo's bet on AI as an invisible infrastructure. If it works, it changes the way devices are used. If it fails, it remains a fascinating idea.

Lenovo Qira was born from a simple idea: the user is one, the devices are many. PC, smartphone, tablet, smartwatch. Screens change, heads don't change. AI, on the other hand, usually starts all over again each time. Qira tries to break this pattern.

It is not a chatbot to be opened when needed. It is an intelligence embedded in the operating system, always present but never intrusive. It's there, like electricity: you don't see it, but if it's missing, you realise immediately. You can call it with your voice, with a button, with a gesture. Or ignore it. The difference is that it knows when to intervene and when to remain silent, adapting to the habits of those who use Lenovo and Motorola devices.

The real ambition, however, is to make her do things. Qira doesn't just suggest: it acts. It can carry out a task using local AI, even without a connection, coordinating different apps and devices. The user stops being the project manager of every micro-step. He says what he wants to achieve, not how to do it. It is the transition from the assistant who responds to the agent who works.

To do this, Qira needs memory. Not a generic memory, but one built over time, made up of documents, user-chosen interactions, context. All openly based on consent and privacy, at least in its intentions. This 'cross-device' perception allows it to understand where you are, what you are doing, what you do next. It does not guess the future, but it recognises patterns. And it is often more than enough.Lenovo Qira was born from a simple, almost banal idea, but one that no one has really solved so far: the user is one, the devices are many. PCs, smartphones, tablets, smartwatches. Screens change, heads don't change. AI, on the other hand, usually starts all over again each time. Qira tries to break this pattern.

It is not a chatbot to be opened when needed. It is an intelligence embedded in the operating system, always present but never intrusive. It's there, like electricity: you don't see it, but if it's missing, you realise immediately. You can call it with your voice, with a button, with a gesture. Or ignore it. The difference is that it knows when to intervene and when to remain silent, adapting to the habits of those who use Lenovo and Motorola devices.

The real ambition, however, is to make her do things. Qira doesn't just suggest: it acts. It can carry out a task using local AI, even without a connection, coordinating different apps and devices. The user stops being the project manager of every micro-step. He says what he wants to achieve, not how to do it. It is the transition from the assistant who responds to the agent who works.

To do this, Qira needs memory. Not a generic memory, but one built over time, made up of documents, user-chosen interactions, context. All avowedly based on consent and privacy, at least in its intentions. This 'cross-device' perception allows it to understand where you are, what you are doing, what you do next. It does not guess the future, but it recognises patterns. And that is often more than enough.

This is where concrete experiences come from. If you walk away, Qira gets you back on track when you return. If you're writing, it goes straight into the paper and helps you turn jumbled ideas into readable text, without forcing you to switch apps or stare at a blank page. If you're in a meeting, it listens, transcribes, translates and summarises, so your memory doesn't hang on the goodwill of the note-taker. If you're working on a shared screen or with the camera active, it understands what you're showing and what you're saying, making interaction with AI seamless and natural.

At times that require more concentration, Lenovo has also thought of dedicated spaces, such as Creator Zone, where AI helps create and edit visual content by reducing digital noise. Fewer notifications, fewer distractions, more creative control. A rarity, in the world of AI that talks all the time.

In the business world, the new ThinkPad X1 Aura Edition and ThinkPad X9 15p stand out. Inside is Intel Core Ultra silicon with dedicated NPUs. Outside, modular and repairable design. Lenovo talks about +20% thermal dissipation and simplified maintenance. Translation: more power, less downtime.

ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 14 and ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 Gen 11 Aura Editions

Prices? X1 Carbon from €1,779, X9 15p from €1,889. Premium PCs, but designed to last.

ThinkCentre X AIO Aura Edition

On the desktop comes the ThinkCentre X: desktops that run AI models with up to 70 billion parameters locally. The ThinkCentre X AIO Aura Edition Copilot+ PC¹⁶ features a 27.6-inch QHD display with a 16:18 ratio, offering a unique, almost square viewing area that is ideal for creators, programmers and data professionals who benefit from the ability to view two A4 pages or full data sets in a convenient portrait format. With Lenovo Share Zone, the AIO becomes both computer and monitor at the same time, dividing the screen into two sections to show content from the AIO on one side and content from a connected external device on the other.AI doesn't always fly in the cloud. Sometimes it stays under the desk.

ThinkPad X9 15p Aura Edition

On the consumer front, the Yoga ecosystem becomes a creative laboratory. The Yoga Pro 9i Aura Edition features Nvidia RTX 50 GPUs and a 3.2K Tandem OLED display. It is a laptop that winks at creators and videomakers. The message is clear: AI is not just for writing emails, but for producing content.

Lenovo calls this Smarter AI for All. More than a slogan, an industrial strategy. $69 billion in global sales help support it. There is also an industrial read. Lenovo is the world's leading PC manufacturer. Thin margins. Huge volumes. AI becomes the way to differentiate without chasing price alone.

In a saturated market, Lenovo chooses the path of AI normalisation. Less hype, more integration.

If he can make artificial intelligence perceived as something natural - and not as yet another feature to be learned - then he will have won the hardest game.