There are several comparisons scattered throughout the announcement:
- Rendering titles and animations in Motion is up to 80 percent faster1 than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro and up to 20 percent faster5 than the previous generation.
- Compiling in Xcode is up to 2.5x faster^1 than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro and nearly 25 percent faster^5 than the previous generation.
- Image processing in Adobe Photoshop is up to 80 percent faster^1 than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro and up to 40 percent faster^5 than the previous generation.
Those numbers are somewhat surprising since they're for M2 Pro, and later on in they say the M2 Max, presumably faster than the M2 Pro, "delivers up to 20 percent greater performance over M1 Max."
"MacBook Pro with M2 Pro features a 10- or 12-core CPU with up to eight high-performance and four high-efficiency cores for up to 20 percent greater performance over M1 Pro. "
"MacBook Pro with M2 Max pushes workflows to the extreme with a much larger GPU featuring up to 38 cores and delivering up to 30 percent greater graphics performance over M1 Max"
I assume their main target is those still on Intel Macs as those who are already happy with M1 can't really justify already upgrading to M2 as it doesn't offer any major bump.
All PR is meant to sell something. Those with M1s are mostly already happy (and most of those in-the-know crowd are aware that M2 isn't as big a step up from M1).
However if you're an Intel MBP holdout, those are the folks who are the target market for this announcement. I have both (M1 Air, 15" 2018 MBP) and I've stopped using my Intel MBP despite it's bigger screen and better storage/RAM.
