With the advent of system level integration (SLI) and system-on- chip (SOC), the center of gravity of the computer industry is moving from personal computing into embedded computing. The opportunities, needs and constraints of this next generation of computing are somewhat different from those to which we have got accustomed in general-purpose computing. This will lead to significantly different computer architectures, at both the system and the processor levels, and a rich diversity of off-the-shelf and custom designs. Furthermore, we predict that embedded computing will introduce a new theme into computer architecture: automation of architecture. In this paper, we elaborate on these claims and provide, as an example, an overview of PICO, the architecture synthesis system that the authors and their colleagues have been developing over the past five years.