Intel was (and arguably still is) too large relative to its current technical capabilities. Yet even in this current “bad chips” era, Intel is only, at worst, about 10% behind in gaming performance (largely due to cache disparity) and is on par or better in most other workloads. From the K10 era until Zen 3, AMD processors were objectively worse (sometimes comically so) and AMD still managed to survive.
Intel’s mobile CPUs remain extremely competitive. Their integrated GPUs are the fastest in the x86 space. And their SoC+platform features: video decode/encode, NPUs, power management, wifi, and so on are the best in class for x86 CPUs; they are usually a solid second place or better regardless of architecture.
Subjectively, the most interesting “mainstream” laptops on the market are still, and historically have been, Intel-based. I understand that in an era where the M4 Max, Snapdragon 8 Elite, and Strix Halo each serve as best-in-class in different segments, “mainstream appeal” no longer equates to market dominance. And that is bad news for an Intel that historically just make a few CPUs (the rest being market segmented down versions of those chips), but still, to suggest they will disappear overnight seems... odd.