What is the correct direction for AI hardware?

Starting with ChatGPT, generative AI has proven the feasibility of AI technology, and as a horizontal technology, AI can transcend vertical industries, giving rise to various AI hardware in the market.

From CES to MWC, and recently IFA, the world's three major technology exhibitions have all sparked an AI hardware craze. Personal AI hardware devices like rabbit r1 at CES and AI Pin, an AI-powered wearable device at MWC, left a profound impression on us.

If the previous two exhibitions brought us a strong impact of new AI species, then at IFA, Leitech witnessed a new AI hardware trend: pragmatism.

AI-powered transformation of mature product categories, AI hardware at IFA is different

Throughout IFA, AI undoubtedly emerged as the protagonist, with numerous products deeply integrating the latest AI technologies such as generative AI and agents. From mobile phones to PCs, headphones, TVs, refrigerators, various smart cleaning devices, and many other products, AI is becoming ubiquitous and omnipotent through these consumer electronics products.

On the eve of IFA's opening, Honor held a global launch event for its new products, introducing the Honor Magic V3, Honor MagicPad 2, and Honor MagicBook Art 14, all of which incorporate AI support.

Image Source: Leitech Onsite Photography

Among them, the Honor Magic V3 is equipped with Honor's self-developed Magic V3, a large-scale model for edge devices, which can provide more personalized operations and services based on users' usage habits, making it an exclusive "mobile phone butler" tailored to each individual.

For example, users can utilize the dual screens of the foldable phone for AI dual-screen translation, a crucial feature for someone like me traveling abroad.

Honor is a typical representative of enhancing mobile phone experiences through AI, and with collective efforts, the threshold for AI-powered phones is constantly lowering. TCL phones launched overseas have also been empowered through collaboration with Microsoft Azure AI, and rumors suggest Qualcomm plans to extend AI capabilities to HMD's entry-level and mid-range price segments through partnerships.

Beyond mobile phones, other companies in various sectors of consumer electronics are also rethinking their products based on AI. For instance, Changhong, a representative Chinese home appliance enterprise, not only introduced its latest AI-powered home appliances for the entire house but also showcased its world's first Changhong Canghai Agent AI TV.

Image Source: Leitech Onsite Photography

The new Canghai Agent AI TV can communicate, think, and grow. Through self-developed adaptive wakeup technology, it makes voice wakeup and recognition more accurate, facilitating communication akin to chatting with family members. Additionally, the Canghai Agent excels at thinking and can self-learn and grow.

The combination of agents and AI hardware makes the new generation of CHiQ products the industry's first true agent-based AI TV.

Samsung is also focused on AI-powered home appliances, with its AI Smart Fridge equipped with AI Vision Inside, which can recognize the food inside the fridge based on machine vision and provide personalized services. These include intelligent recipe recommendations, intelligent adjustment of refrigeration efficiency for energy savings, and reminders for different food shelf lives.

Image Source: Leitech Onsite Photography

Moreover, this fridge is integrated into Samsung's SmartThings ecosystem, allowing remote control through your phone and real-time monitoring of fridge inventory. Imagine standing in a supermarket unsure how many eggs are left at home? With your phone, you can instantly check the inventory, the same goes for other ingredients.

The smart cleaning sector is also thriving, with vendors like Yunji and Zhideer bringing their latest technologies and products. As a smart home cleaning brand in the AI era, Yunji unveiled its latest flagship smart sweeping robot, Freo Z Ultra, at IFA. This new product integrates technologies like TwinAI Dodge obstacle avoidance and Proactive AI DirtSense 2.0, ushering in a new AI era for smart cleaning solutions.

Image Source: Leitech Onsite Photography

In the PC realm, Lenovo, ASUS, Dell, HP, Acer, MSI, and virtually all mainstream PC manufacturers are emphasizing AI-powered PCs. For instance, Lenovo's offerings cover its core product lines like ThinkPad, ThinkBook, Yoga, and LdeaPad (known as "Xiaoxin" in China), spanning Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm platforms and equipped with the latest PC chips from these three vendors, indicating Lenovo's push for AI-powered PCs across its entire product line.

Among them, the ThinkBook Auto Twist AI PC is the world's first AI-powered PC with an automatically rotating screen. Instead of a traditional hinge, it features a mechanical base with automatic rotation functionality. Through AI integration with cameras, microphones, and other hardware, the built-in AI automatically calculates the speaker's position, rotates the screen to the corresponding angle, and finally corrects it through the camera.

Image Source: Leitech Onsite Photography

Notably, Spacedeck released its latest AI simultaneous interpretation earbuds, W4 Pro, at IFA, and Leitech personally experienced what it means to have a "personal translation assistant."

Image Source: Leitech Onsite Photography

Leveraging AI translation models, the W4 Pro, in conjunction with an app on your phone, enables real-time conversation translation, large meeting real-time translation, and real-time video translation, akin to having a live human translator. It translates foreign languages in real-time for me and my Chinese speech into foreign languages for the other party, making communication between people speaking different languages more natural.

Practical and accessible, AI hardware at IFA is more utilitarian

As a media person who has covered CES and MWC exhibitions multiple times, I would summarize IFA's biggest characteristic in two words—pragmatism. Unlike the flashy technology demonstrations at CES or the technology sharing primarily aimed at operators and ISPs at MWC, most of the technologies and products showcased at IFA are genuinely available for purchase and use in the near future.

Thanks to this pragmatic nature, IFA feels more like a "tech bazaar" for consumers rather than a tech show focused on showing off.

Perhaps influenced by IFA's unique character, the AI hardware on display, whether the latest smart home appliances, mobile devices, smart homes, or IoT-related innovations, can soon be brought home by visitors. Just like the cutting-edge technologies showcased by Honor, Lenovo, Spacedeck, and Changhong, they are all integrated into products either already in mass production or about to enter production. In other words, IFA showcases more practical, accessible AI hardware.

Image Source: Leitech Onsite Photography

Apart from pragmatism, IFA's AI hardware product roadmap also differs markedly from the concept of AI-native hardware emphasized at CES and MWC, resembling more of an AI-powered transformation of products.

If AI Pin and rabbit r1 are essentially built upon the latest AI technologies, more AI hardware at IFA is focused on enhancing and unleashing the potential of existing product forms through AI integration. The products introduced earlier are all typical representatives of their respective categories.

Both AI hardware approaches are strategies adopted by enterprises to create uniqueness in the fiercely competitive and product-homogenized consumer electronics market. However, currently, AI-powered transformations are receiving better market feedback because the corresponding products are already mature. Enhancing products through AI is like "icing on the cake," such as using AI to elevate camera experiences on AI phones or improve work efficiency on AI PCs. It doesn't require redefining demand scenarios, posing lesser challenges and risks. Users can intuitively feel the optimized experiences brought by AI.

Acclaimed but not popular, where do AI hardware "new species" go from here?

So far, no product in the AI-native hardware race has achieved exceptional success, mostly garnering acclaim but failing to attract widespread adoption. AI Pin experienced large-scale returns within months of its launch, and Rabbit R1, which initially sold well, faced negative reviews akin to "Android skinning" during mass deliveries. Professional-oriented products like PLAUD NOTE and Limitless Pendant, constrained by usage scenarios, also failed to achieve high sales volumes.

Despite these setbacks, the soaring market sentiment remains unaffected, with new products of varying positions like AI Friend and NotePin emerging in succession. However, AI hardware is not merely about integrating AI into hardware; more importantly, it's about enhancing product experiences through AI capabilities.

Image Source: Plaud

AI-powered fridges for smart energy-saving and food preservation, AI-powered sweeping robots for automatic obstacle avoidance cleaning, AI phones and PCs tailored to individuals, and AI simultaneous interpretation earbuds that serve as personal translation assistants... The various AI hardware showcased at IFA has set a clear example for all AI hardware manufacturers. Whether you're developing AI-native hardware or AI-transformed hardware, standing out in the AI hardware race necessitates a focus on product experiences.

When analyzing AI hardware, we generally don't consider them mere hardware products but rather gateways to various services. While users enjoy these services, they also worry about the underlying data privacy processing. Privacy has always been a challenge for all AI hardware because their AI processing heavily relies on the cloud.

For instance, rabbit R1 was exposed for having security vulnerabilities in its API, posing a risk of user data leakage. NotePin's transcription uses OpenAI Whisper, while summarization and other advanced tasks are processed through cloud computing with LLMs like GPT-4o or Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

At IFA, Leitech communicated with staff from various brands, and edge-side solutions have become standard for many AI hardware products. Prioritizing and optimizing edge-side large model solutions may become the primary direction for all AI hardware going forward.

Image Source: Leitech Onsite Photography

Essentially, AI is a technology, not a product, and cannot directly generate user value. Therefore, the common challenge for 2024 and all consumer electronics manufacturers is: How to create products in the AI era.

No transformation happens overnight, just like smartphones took a long time to evolve into their current form.

This is even more true for AI hardware. In Leitech's view, pragmatism is the way forward for AI hardware across industries. Although all AI hardware has some inevitable shortcomings at this stage, it's undeniable that AI is transforming hardware and will continue to do so.

Source: Leitech