Working smarter

Indeed, research shows that hybrid work increases average productivity by 5 percent and that the majority of workers feel the arrangement improves their work/life balance.¹ So hybrid work is likely here to stay.

The challenge for IT is that remote workers must have access to all the resources they would have at the office. They need to authenticate on corporate networks and securely access email, messaging and video apps, benefits portals and more. They also need systems that are always up to date and running smoothly.

This can be problematic for tech support staff, who may lack physical access to workers’ computers. The solution is to equip staff with systems that facilitate advanced remote management. PCs built on Intel vPro® fit this bill.

Intel vPro Enterprise lets support technicians remotely discover, diagnose, repair or retire PCs, wherever they are. Meanwhile, hardware-based Intel® Active Management Technology operates independent of a system’s operating system, so even non-bootable devices can be maintained remotely.

By enabling a unified support model for all workers, these tools simplify life for IT staff and reduce maintenance costs. “Having a different support process for on-prem and off-prem workers adds a level of complexity and cost that can be avoided if all machines have the same remote management capabilities and can be treated equally regardless of their location,” says Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

According to one study², Intel vPro reduces the need for hardware-related onsite visits by up to 90 percent and cuts time spent on device management by 65 percent, while delivering 213 percent return-on-investment over three years.

Meanwhile, AI-powered accessibility tools, including text-to-speech and real-time captioning, can improve life for workers with physical impairments.

But these benefits cannot be fully realized if organizations lack hardware that can process demanding AI workloads. AI tasks can place significant demands on PCs and laptops, and performance can lag in systems that were not designed for these challenges.

Intel has stepped up with systems that are built for AI. In addition to powerful central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), Intel has added a new neural processing unit (NPU) to define its Intel® Core™ Ultra architecture.

Intel’s NPU includes hardware acceleration blocks that are built to efficiently handle sustained, compute-intensive AI tasks – such as blurring backgrounds in a video call or real-time image generation. Running AI tasks through NPUs can be more power efficient than relying solely on CPUs and GPUs.

“NPUs perform their tasks far more efficiently, making them the technology of choice when the systems need to remain running all the time,” says Enderle. “AIs are increasingly conversational so they need to remain active to perform their tasks. Machines with NPUs make it possible to run AI as it needs to be run without massively increasing energy use or significantly decreasing battery life.”

Intel Core Ultra processors are capable of up to 2.5x the AI inference performance per watt compared to Intel’s previous mobile offering.³

Ransomware, for example, cost businesses more than $1 billion in 2023⁴ and it’s getting harder to detect. In the past, hackers would typically entice users to click on an email. Doing so would drop a malware file to their hard drive. That file was relatively easy for security programs to spot. But now, an estimated 75 percent of intrusions rely on stealthy, fileless attacks.⁵

Meanwhile, software supply-chain attacks, where hackers insert malware into valid application code, are on the rise. At the same time, more cybercriminals are gaining access to networks via valid credentials that were phished or stolen.

In such an environment, software-only defenses need some help. What’s required is defense in depth. This should start with security training for all employees – and equipping them with highly secure systems.

Systems built on Intel vPro come equipped with Intel® Threat Detection Technology (TDT), which works at the chip level and uses AI to detect cyberattacks that evade software-only defenses. In fact, many leading security software vendors are pre-integrating Intel® TDT into their products.

Intel TDT fingerprints malware as it tries to execute on a system’s CPU. This approach thwarts attempts at cloaking and works in concert with security software. According to a recent study, Intel TDT detected 93 percent of the top ransomware variants, increasing protection by 24 percent over software alone.⁶

“Chip-level security is believed to be far more secure than software-based security because it is far harder to overcome,” says Enderle. Chip level is below the BIOS so even BIOS-level security isn’t as secure and, once compromised, it is very difficult to detect the problem. A chip-level solution will always be more secure,” says Enderle.

A laptop that’s running for 8 hours accounts for up to 88 kilograms of C0₂ per year on average.⁷ About 20 percent of this is from energy consumed by actual use, with the rest attributed to manufacturing, shipping and related activities. Multiply that by thousands of users at a typical large company and it adds up. That’s not to mention the electricity costs of running these systems, which can be significant for enterprises.

This creates a challenge for IT leaders. Eighty-one percent say “green IT,” where the goal is to reduce technology’s environmental impact, ranks highly on their organization’s corporate agenda.⁸

One way they can meet this challenge is by equipping users with the latest Intel-based systems. Intel Core Ultra processors are designed with power efficiency and sustainability in mind. Through a holistic approach that includes changes to the microarchitecture, manufacturing process, packaging technology and power management, these chips consume 40 percent less power during modern tasks like videoconferencing with a web cam.⁹

“Older laptops can pull a lot of power in aggregate and thus the positive impact from a far more power-efficient processor can, again in aggregate, make a significant difference in how much energy is being used,” says Enderle.

Intel technologies may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. No product or component can be absolutely secure. Your costs and results may vary. Intel Corp. Intel, the Intel logo, Intel vPro® and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.