AI hardware is in the “put up or shut up” era
Whether any of them will implement chatbots and agents well or in new and exciting ways is much harder to say. While the addition of AI may have been enough to attract the investment needed to build a device, it may not be enough to get people to actually buy the device. Chatbots and AI agents don’t yet provide enough of a use case to justify people pinning them to their shirts en masse. We are also at a point of AI saturation where the technology is in everything. What makes your AI earbuds special then?
“That’s the problem that a lot of these startups have; If AI is their differentiator, what happens when everyone has it?” says Sag. “It’s table stakes now.”
Wearables and devices designed specifically to provide some AI-powered services may have seemed like the logical next step in AI development, but so far the benefits we derive from them do not cross borders.
“The reality is that we don’t need dedicated hardware for the kinds of features or use cases they showcase,” says Ubrani. “Your phone can do most of these things.”
In the space of a year, AI has evolved from just a selling point to something resembling a slightly more potent form of vanilla.
Make a dent
Of course, there are success stories about AI hardware, such as: Meta Ban Ray Smart glasses that have done well by integrating AI one of many features in a device that offers use cases – taking photos, listening to music – that go far beyond what AI can do alone. (That will certainly be a year filled with smart glassesand CES will definitely be full of them too.)
Meta is, of course, one of those giant companies that has resources to integrate AI into their services. Smaller manufacturers may not have the financial stamina to compete, but still feel the pressure to compete.
“It will be difficult to see how these smaller startups survive,” says Sag.
According to Sag, there are ways to stand out from the big devices and the sea of other AI gadgets in the mix. Data protection, for example. Meta may have the most successful smart glasses currently, but the company’s platform is a data vacuum that sucks up almost all the information it can about its users. Sag points to competitors like Even realities or Looktech.AIwho make smart glasses that give the user extensive control over privacy settings and don’t necessarily send all data back to the mothership. He says startups like this can use the safer approach to differentiate their products and offer users an alternative to the big data mining platforms.
No matter how secure the technology is, people still want something that will fundamentally benefit them.
“The next wave of this is: What is AI doing for me right now besides telling me that I have AI?” says Sag. “A lot of AI doesn’t necessarily increase sales because it doesn’t really change people’s lives.”
