llothar
There is no universal solution to this. Some vendors support fwupd (LVFS) on some hardware (Dell, Lenovo), some allow to update via a file on a USB stick (Asus).
Unless it is a system from Linux first company (Tuxedo, StarLabs, System76, Slimbook) expect to manually check what the specific model you are looking at supports.
Adding AI is like adding a lane to a crowded street. It will move more cars per hour, but the street will soon have the same traffic jams as before.
Workers will be as busy and as overworked as before.
Plus, even though people theoretically do more, it is not really more. For example Digital Signage - before generative AI you would put in some text, a clipart or a stock image and call it a day. Now one may be expected to polish the text with AI plus generate a more fitting image. Does it make a nicer Digital Signage? Sure. Will productivity actually go up? I doubt it.
If the goal is to have the most up to date bleeding edge software, but have it on a critical machine, consider immutable distro like Fedora Silverblue or OpenSuse Aeon. Especially the latter will be just days behind Arch, and if an update breaks something you just roll back and try updating again in a week.
I used Silverblue as my main work system and this saved me a few times.
The problem with older machines is the web browsing, not the system itself. You could use a browser with Java script disabled but a lot of websites will refuse to work.
You have to sacrifice with browser functionality to improve performance.