Open-source AI pushes Dell to rethink its full portfolio

Open-source AI agents are forcing Dell and its customers to rethink where AI work happens, from the data center rack to the desktop. At Dell Technologies World 2026, Dell senior vice president of product marketing Sam Grocott said the shift has turned PCs from passive terminals into active AI systems that can run models locally and handle more secure, higher-performance workloads.

Grocott made the remarks in a conversation with theCUBE’s John Furrier and Dave Vellante, alongside Dave Morin, a board member at the OpenClaw Foundation. The interview focused on open-source AI agents, the rapid growth of the OpenClaw community and Dell’s deskside AI strategy.

For several years, Grocott said, personal computers were mainly “a window into generative AI tools” and large language models, or LLMs. Now, he said, they are becoming “tier one” systems in their own right because they can move models locally and reduce reliance on centralized infrastructure.

He said the biggest pressure point is cost. According to Grocott, the economics of running AI locally is a major reason enterprise interest is growing so fast.

Morin said the OpenClaw project has moved from a niche developer effort to one of the fastest-growing open-source communities in tech history in less than a year. He said the framework lets people build and deploy AI agents for almost any workflow, even if they do not come from a software engineering background.

That broad appeal is showing up at ClawCon events in Brazil, Tokyo and at the University of Michigan, Morin said. He said roughly 80% of attendees are new builders who are trying software development for the first time and applying it to use cases the team “would’ve never dreamed of.”

Morin also said enterprises should move carefully when they start using agents. He recommended treating agents like new hires by beginning with read-only data connections in a sandbox, rather than granting broad access to internal systems.

“Put your agent in a sandbox of some kind and then give it read-only access,” Morin said. He added that teams can then see what the agent uncovers before expanding its permissions.

He said one area where agents can help quickly is project-management orchestration, which he said can become “really, really easy” once agents are given the right limited access.

Dell is also seeing demand across its hardware lineup, according to Grocott. He said the Dell Pro Max with GB10 and GB300 deskside systems has drawn standing-room-only crowds at hands-on deployment sessions.

Grocott said the company is now seeing pull from both the data center and the desk, and that the change is broad enough to affect the full product line. “Using these tools, you’re going to completely re-architect how you do work going forward,” he said. “[Dell’s] entire portfolio’s in play at this point.”