AI hardware is in its ‘put up or shut up’ era

It’s hard to say whether any of them will implement chatbots and agents well or in new and exciting ways. While the addition of AI may be enough to garner the investment needed to build a device, it may not be enough to get people to actually buy the thing. Chatbots and AI agent Still don’t provide enough use cases to justify pinning people to their shirts. We are at a point of AI saturation where technology is in everything. So, what makes your AI earbuds special?

“A lot of these startups have this problem; If AI is their differentiator, what if everyone has it?” Saag said. “It’s table stakes now.”

Wearables and devices built specifically to provide some AI-powered services may seem like the logical next step in AI evolution, but the utility we’re getting from them so far doesn’t push the boundaries.

“The reality is we don’t need the kind of features or use-case dedicated hardware that they’re demonstrating,” Ubrani said. “Your phone can do most things.”

In the space of a year, AI has evolved from a selling point on its own to something like a slightly more robust form of vanilla.

make a dent

There are AI hardware success stories, of course, e.g Meta-Ban Ray Smart glasses, which incorporate AI, have done a good job One of many features A device that offers use cases—taking pictures, listening to music—beyond what AI can do on its own. (It must be a year Full of smart glassesAnd CES is bound to be full of them.)

Meta, of course, is one of those giant companies with the resources to incorporate AI into its services. Smaller manufacturers may not have the financial strength to compete, but they’re feeling the pressure to get in the game all the same.

“It’s going to be hard to see how these small startups survive,” Saag said.

Sagg says other AI gadgets in the mix have ways to stand out from larger devices. Privacy, for example. Meta may have the most successful smart glasses right now, but the company’s platform is a data vacuum that sucks up nearly every bit of information about its users that it can. Sag points towards competitors like even reality or Looktech.AIWhich makes for smart glasses that allow extensive user control over privacy settings and don’t necessarily just send every bit of data back to the mothership. He says startups like this can use more secure methods to differentiate their products, offering users an alternative to large, data mining platforms.

No matter how safe and secure technology is, people still want something that fundamentally does something useful for them.

“The next kind of wave is, well, what is the AI ​​doing for me now, other than saying I have AI?” Saag said. “A lot of AI isn’t necessarily driving sales, because it’s not really changing people’s lives.”