Humane is no more. The company that launched one of the first AI-infused devices, the AI Pin, is shutting its servers at the end of the month turning the existing Pins from a device of questionable value into brainless lumps of silicon that need to (hopefully) be recycled. While the death of the AI Pin should surprise no one – the company struggled to convince consumers of its value – there’s a greater lesson here. Namely, AI is not a product.
Rather, it is best to think of AI as a new, improved fuel that provides a significant boost to existing products ranging from PCs and smartphones to smart glasses. Indeed, one of the areas with the greatest potential is the infusion of AI into IA (intelligence agents). Think Siri, Hey Google, Alexa and others: these were designed to (somewhat) transform how we interact with our devices, moving from a screen-based medium to one where we can converse with the devices instead.
But let’s be honest; today’s intelligent agents are not that smart. Yes, they are somewhat useful but are certainly not a replacement for our screens. A case in point is the interaction you may have with an AI while driving: I ask relatively simple questions and typically get the response that “I cannot show you this right now because you are driving.” Fair point: I should not be looking at a screen while driving, but I didn’t want to. Rather, I wanted a verbal response that interpreted whatever details the AI found.
The current array of intelligent agents are, without doubt, one of the greatest opportunities for improvement, and offer the greatest opportunity for upheaval of the current status quo. What used to be a three-horse race between Google, Amazon and Apple is now opening up due to the myriad of AI-based solutions. But just as we should consider AI the “super fuel,” let’s not forget that the AI also needs a solid product base. That was Humane’s error: the AI was intriguing, but the physical manifestation as the AI Pin… not so much.
This is where smart glasses enter the fray. Glasses with a powerful AI agent (and the necessary hardware such as a camera) have the potential to become a far more important component in our life. Rather than pulling the phone out of our pocket, we can simply look at something and ask the Intelligent agent what it is; ask directions based on our location and more. And, if it is done well, these glasses will not need a screen: the voice-based interface will be there for most (perhaps not all) of our mobile needs.
But there is a challenge. I want one intelligent agent that “follows” me wherever I go. That includes times when I am not wearing smart sunglasses, such as when I’m home. That puts relative newcomers, such as Meta with its Ray-Bans, at a disadvantage. To solve that, the newer intelligent agents need to be incorporated into more devices. Specifically, Meta AI and similar products need to be in as many other devices as possible, such as cars and the smart speakers scattered around our homes. The goal should be that wherever you are, you have a device near you that will answer your queries, knowing who you are to build a stronger relationship with you. And not just with you: when the agent is used in a shared environment, such as a car or home, then it could naturally pull other family members into the new ecosystem.
To be clear, I’m not necessarily advocating that these newcomers need to build and sell car interfaces, smart speakers and the like. They could, but they could also look to license their AI to other companies, in the same way that Microsoft built a dominant PC operating system without building any hardware. The company that successfully expands an intelligent-intelligent agent across these multiple platforms, supporting a range of functionality from smart home control to basic queries and contextual analysis has the potential to upset the current consumer tech status quo, becoming the center of the consumer’s tech ecosystem. That will lessen the dominance (potentially) of the current mobile OS, pushing the mobile phone from being the center of our tech universe to just one additional component within an ecosystem that centers around voice interfaces.
Circana’s Connected Intelligence service publishes an annual Evolving Ecosystem report that examines the strength of each consumer-focused ecosystem, and the relative weaknesses to be found in each one.