Meet Qira AI, Lenovo’s big bet on an ever-present AI helper | usagoldmines.com

If you’ve been waiting — like we have — for truly useful artificial-intelligence applications to land on your laptop, Lenovo has an answer: Qira, a Lenovo-authored AI app that will live on new, select Lenovo PCs and Qira smartphones in the first quarter of 2026.

Lenovo describes Qira as an “ambient” intelligence, which might be both good or bad; Windows’ Clippy was famously an assistant which tried to understand what you were doing and offer assistance. Qira sounds like something similar, though with the intent that it “follows” you from Lenovo device to Lenovo device, or on to a Motorola smartphone as well, using a combination of agents and other tasks. Lenovo says that this will be marketed as Lenovo Qira, launching on “select” devices in the first quarter, and as Motorola Qira on smartphones later on.

Lenovo says that Qira was designed for privacy, running locally as well as in conjunction with “secure” cloud services. “Every aspect of the Lenovo Qira experience is designed to be secure, ethical, and accountable,” Lenovo says.

I didn’t really have a chance to see Qira in action before CES 2026, where Lenovo launched the technology. But the company describes Qira as performing three key functions: presence, actions, and perception.

Mark Hachman / Foundry

Qira can “proactively surface suggestions,” or it can be invoked by saying “Hey, Qira” or by clicking the app’s icon. Lenovo says that you’ll be able to specify documents or “memories” for Qira to access, but that it also “orchestrates actions across apps and devices, coordinates agents, and moves work forward without forcing users to manage every step themselves,” using agents or even offline. The idea is that will develop a “living model of the user’s world,” understanding “context, continuity, and personal patterns over time.”

Naturally, a Windows PC like Lenovo’s will already have Microsoft’s Copilot running. It will be interesting to see if the two can interact, or if Lenovo will try to push Copilot to the background instead.

That’s a lot of buzzwords that could mean just about anything, depending on the context. Native applications are polarizing enough already: some users like an absolutely “clean” Windows installation, while others appreciate apps like Lenovo’s Vantage software, a centralized command and control center for configuring various aspects of Lenovo laptops, such as function keys or whether a laptop’s charging ports work while the laptop is in a sleep state.

Mark Hachman / Foundry

I personally like Vantage, but there’s a major difference between clicking through a series of actions in a centralized app, and then giving access to personal documents to an unknown AI. I can’t help but suspect that Lenovo will have a kill switch in place for certain customers.

What, specifically, can Lenovo’s Qira do?

Some of Qira’s abilities sound familiar: “Write for Me,” for example, is something most AI’s can do, penning some text in an appropriate style or voice. Catch Me Up is something apps like Slack offer: the ability to summarize an active chat Here, it “highlights what matters, and helps you re-enter your work.” Similarly, “Pay Attention” provides translations and transcriptions when enabled, as well as AI summaries, similar to Otter.ai or other transcription services.

Mark Hachman / Foundry

Others feel a bit more experimental. A Live Interaction feature “enables real-time, multimodal interaction while you are sharing your screen” — whatever that means. “Next Move” sounds like the weirdest, offering “proactive, contextual suggestions based on what you’re doing in the moment, with continuity across devices evolving over time,” Lenovo said. “It surfaces useful next actions to help you move forward without extra steps.”

Qira, naturally, is a big bet for Lenovo. Corporate customers are sure to give Qira a doubtful eye…but many of those same customers are being actively encouraged to use AI to save time and resources. A vocal cadre of consumers actively hate it. We still don’t know which devices Qira will debut on.

But as one of the largest PC companies in the world, Lenovo is almost obligated to give AI a try. We’ll have to see if it can pull it off.