This is taking a laptop CPU and stuffing it in a handheld. The laptop CPU already has the npu and removing it would require a new SKU which would cost money for special handling for packaging, new firmware, new drivers, and probably more costs I haven't considered. You would save on the silicon but unless they have high volume, removing the npu is likely more expensive.
They will likely try to leverage AI to reduce rendering like AMD. I suspect this is literally announced to show that Intel is still relevant and to prevent more bleeding from that company. They did similar when Apple dropped them. Rather than make better chips, they released a mass marketing push to show they were every bit as good as Apple silicon if not better.