Apple Just Signalled What Laptops Are Becoming

Apple Just Signalled What Laptops Are Becoming

Apple didn’t just launch new MacBook Pros this week.
They signalled something bigger.

Most headlines focused on “4x faster AI performance.” But the real story sits underneath that headline, in the architecture of the new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.
Apple is designing laptops around a new assumption:

The modern laptop will spend a lot of its time running AI.
Not just accessing AI tools in the cloud, but actually running models locally.

The numbers explain why

With up to 128GB of unified memory and 614GB/s of memory bandwidth, machines like the new MacBook Pro are moving into territory where running large AI models locally becomes realistic.

No cloud API calls.

No latency.

No token pricing.

Just inference happening directly on the device.

That’s a big shift

“AI is moving closer to the device, and that means the requirements for hardware, security, and governance are changing quickly. Businesses need to start thinking about whether their environment is actually built for that reality.”

Will Eels, General Manager, Rhubarb

For years, machines like the MacBook Pro were primarily built for creative workloads, video editing, development, design.

Those use cases still exist. But the buyer profile is evolving.

More businesses are now exploring machines like this to:

• Run local AI models
• Automate internal workflows
• Experiment with AI-driven tools
• Reduce reliance on cloud-based AI services

The laptop is changing

In other words, the laptop is becoming something more powerful than a productivity device.
It’s becoming an AI workstation.

And that raises an important question for businesses: If AI is becoming embedded in everyday work, are your devices and your IT environment actually built for that shift?

It’s not just about tools

Adopting AI isn’t just about using new tools.
It’s about having the right foundation underneath them.

That means:

• The right hardware
• The right security
• The right governance
• An IT strategy that keeps up with how work is changing

Why Rhubarb

That’s exactly why we built Rhubarb.

Rhubarb is our all-in-one IT offering designed for businesses stepping into the AI era, helping teams deploy the right hardware, secure their environments, and actually make sense of emerging AI workflows.

Because the businesses that benefit from AI won’t just be the ones experimenting with tools.

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They’ll be the ones with the right foundations underneath them.