(Credit: Intel)
We attended Intel’s first-ever “Pro Day” media event this week in New York City, and, as the name always promises, it was all business.
Specifically, enhancements and revisions to Intel's well-known, long-running vPro suite were the star of the show. (Indeed, this year marks the 20th anniversary of vPro. Soon, it'll be old enough to drink.) We walked through a host of vPro demos outlining new functionality for fleet management, security, and more. What we fast learned: This ordinarily low-key suite has some high-impact updates in store this year.
Wait, What Is vPro Again?
Intel's vPro is a set of hardware and software technologies built specifically for business needs, working together to support and secure enterprise PC deployments and professional workflows. (Think remote-management software, on-hardware security, and threat detection.)
If you’re in the IT business—especially if you’re responsible for a commercial fleet—or even as a professional end user, you know and likely rely on this platform. It's an Intel-specific initiative; AMD's rough equivalent is AMD Ryzen Pro, while Qualcomm's, with its Snapdragon X chips, is the nascent Snapdragon Guardian.
In various forms, vPro has been in service for two decades and is widely deployed across large and small businesses that are Intel shops. It's continually updated, but rarely in an all-at-once push like this 2026 revamp detailed in our briefings. We got the rundown on the latest advancements during Pro Day, including some demos of cutting-edge features. Also revealed: the list of Intel's latest-gen Core Ultra 300-series chips eligible for vPro...
(Credit: Intel)A 2026 vPro Overview: Intelligence, Manageability, Optimization, and Security
At a high level, Intel’s outline for vPro moving forward revolves around the latest hardware—the Intel Core Ultra CPU platform (most recently manifested in the "Panther Lake" line of laptop chips, the Intel Arc graphics family (discrete and integrated), and the Intel Xeon workstation CPU family—and a shift to focus on hybrid AI (rather than exclusively cloud-based or on-device AI). Its priorities for end users are long battery life, smooth operation, and minimal downtime, while it seeks to empower IT managers with advanced cybersecurity tools, robust device management, and smooth hardware rollouts to employees. That's been its rough remit for some time.
(Credit: Intel)In its latest rev of vPro, Intel has established four pillars: vPro Intelligence, vPro Manageability, vPro Optimization, and vPro Security. For Intelligence, the new focuses are real-time device telemetry, with Intel Device IQ (more about that below) able to detect issues and trigger local AI for remediation. An improved tool for recording battery life, charge depletion, and battery health tracking (also detailed below) is part of this equation.
The new key features under the Manageability umbrella include what Intel calls the “first and only” solution for out-of-band device management and disaster recovery, as well as a focus on remote repairability. Optimization, meanwhile, circles around new vPro-certified hardware and software that meet Intel standards for reliability and responsiveness. (Intel is rolling out formally named "vPro Certified Apps and Accessories," alongside partners like Citrix, CrowdStrike, Dell, Lenovo, and Logi.) And the Security umbrella encompasses new encryption and threat-detection features, along with "assured supply chain" advantages that guarantee access to repairs and parts over device lifespans from predictable sources.
(Credit: Intel)Speaking of Arc, Intel also introduced two new workstation graphics cards, the Arc Pro B70 and B65. With 32GB of memory, these are well-suited to AI workloads and ready to compete with top options from Nvidia's RTX Pro workstation graphics card line.
There are plenty more details within each of these, and additional facets of Intel's commercial business. But here's a quick run-through of four of the most intriguing vPro advances we saw at Pro Day, in a ballroom full of demos we attended. In addition to a presentation on what is new for vPro overall, Intel served up a blizzard of feature-specific demonstrations during Pro Day. These were the ones that stuck with us.
1. Battery Life Diagnostic Tool 3.0: Granular, Powerful Power Data
The first we’ll cover is the battery tracking tool we alluded to above. PC fleet management is an essential, but difficult, large-scale operation crucial to running a big business. Remote diagnostics are a lifeline for IT managers, but simply collecting data on system behavior over time can guide future purchasing decisions and help IT buyers and decision-makers avoid past equipment-acquisition mistakes.
Battery life and health are two of the most crucial system facets that IT personnel struggle with, and Intel is empowering them with granular battery-life reporting per device. One of the demonstrations we saw during Pro Day went through the particulars of the new Intel Battery Life Diagnostic Tool, which will soon be updated to version 3.0. The application can provide a detailed breakdown of battery facets, including capacity, changes in capacity over time based on behavior, total running time, and which software and processes are the main drains, and to what degree.
(Credit: Intel)This data can be handy for profiling a single PC's traits, to be sure. But consider the "power" of pooled power data from vPro-enabled machines across your corporate network.
(Credit: Intel)Not all of these telemetry features are new in themselves, but the sheer volume of data being collected and surfaced in a single, friendly UI is a boon to IT departments. From there, your IT department can break down and analyze the data in any way that’s useful—tracking degradation along laptop generations, targeting particularly degraded units, identifying applications with heavy battery drain, and more.
(Credit: Intel)If certain software is causing severe battery drain, it might be time to consider an alternative. If certain hardware shows historical battery dropoff, you’ll know which employees are in line for an upgrade, or you may switch PC families entirely for the next order. All of this information helps keep devices operating efficiently in your employees' hands and helps you know which systems to replace and when.
2. A Remote Assistance Ramp-Up: Client PC Access Via a Simple Code From Anywhere
Another short demonstration we saw revolved around enhancements to remote access for diagnostics and updates. Remote access to user devices for IT departments is no new development, but Intel has further streamlined the process.
In this demo, when prompted by IT, the end user’s machine displays an access code to be provided to IT to enable IT to take control of the PC for updates, fixes, or reconfiguration...
(Credit: Intel)Again, that’s helpful and not new, but the real boon is that this code can now even display when the endpoint machine is in, say, BIOS mode. In this scenario, vPro doesn’t need an operating system to communicate and display a simple access-code graphic, working directly with the metal to allow IT access. (It can even work at a command prompt if that's all that's available.)
What that means: Plugging in the code lets the IT person manage the PC from its current state, even if it's disabled or stuck outside Windows. That also means that either reverting BIOS settings or performing an OS reset is possible. Here you can see that kind of IT remote access from within an Asus PC's BIOS...
(Credit: Intel)Intel’s representative explained that the Intel team has pushed this to extremes in testing—their vPro team even challenged each other, successfully, to try to access a troubled machine that was acting up on a flight, over airplane Wi-Fi! Even under less dramatic circumstances, it looks like a super-practical feature. Simplifying remote access for users with a wide range of tech savvy (or for those stuck in BIOS or trying to troubleshoot) can speed up support and maybe even prevent the need to send a machine in the mail for servicing.
3. TDT-DTECT: Threat Detection That Fights AI With AI
In today’s world, part of vPro’s evolution is responding to advancements in AI. Some of these can be deployed for good on the side of IT, but bad actors are also using generative AI to develop increasingly complex malware. It’s a tactical dogfight between evolving, high-volume attacks and dynamic threat recognition and mitigation.
Intel walked us through examples of how malware is evolving and what its software can do to counter attacks under the umbrella of its Threat Detection Technology (TDT-DTECT). AI-generated malware often mixes malicious code in different orders and arrangements to evade code-capture defenses, returning with a different-looking code string to try to fool active protection.
(Credit: Intel)On the IT side, Intel’s AI can rapidly search for and identify this morphing, malicious code, regardless of whether it appears in the same pattern or order as before. It’s an ever-shifting fight, and there’s no claim TDT-DTECT will work every time or catch every attack, but that’s the idea behind it. With the help of TDT-DTECT, AI can help detect strings that appear to have been generated by AI and isolate them earlier in the malware's execution, thereby potentially forestalling adverse consequences before the malware can act.
Running this kind of detection locally on an NPU also offers the obvious advantage of avoiding tying up the usual system resources by offloading to the neural processor. As malicious software becomes more advanced and integrates AI to make itself "adaptable," it’s necessary to keep up with the sheer volume and variation of threats by fighting with the same tools.
4. Device IQ: A Watchdog Against Resource Hogs
In the last notable demo, under the umbrella of Intel Device IQ, we saw a real-time detection service that monitors the impact of applications and background processes on performance. It pops up suggestions to disable or de-emphasize offenders.
This demo showed off a graphics-rendering task (an aquarium full of fish, whose frame rates and swimming action were directly affected by the availability of system resources). Here the fish were doing their around-60fps thing under minimal load...
(Credit: Intel)Device IQ would monitor the running (fishy) foreground task and pop up a warning if it detected an, um, fishier background process that dragged performance below a certain threshold (as indicated by the red line in the demo graphic here)...
(Credit: Intel)When an impediment arose (here "AnnoyingBackgroundTask"), a warning pop-up indicated that the process or program was bogging down the main tasks and asked if we'd like to act on it...
(Credit: Intel)"Acting on it" might involve isolating it to one CPU core. Or it might mean shutting it down.
Now, Intel's on-site representative, who was demonstrating the Device IQ watchdog, noted that IT could set parameters for the warnings and declare certain processes or programs off-limits to Device IQ. (An example: The impact of a malware detector on your foreground work might be something you'd want to give a pass--ideally, you would not want users to disable that software!) But the idea here is to give the user, in the moment, autonomy to diagnose what might be slowing down their workflow and manage it without IT intervention...but within IT-defined limits.
At 20 Years, Raising an Early Glass to vPro
To be sure, vPro has evolved from pedestrian beginnings into an always-there framework and IT copilot of sorts. The throughline of these updates? A shift toward systems that anticipate problems before they surface, fix what they can on their own, and try to be a helpful partner when a person (whether an end user or an IT person) has to make the call.
If this 2026 revamp is any indication, vPro is increasingly moving from helping you manage fleets to orchestrate them. For a platform that’s almost old enough to order a cocktail, that’s a pretty fitting way to, ahem, raise the bar.