AI hardware is in the “Shut Up or Shut Up” Era

It’s harder to say whether any of them will implement chatbots and agents well or in new and interesting ways. While the addition of AI might be enough to garner the investment needed to build the device, it may not get people to actually buy the thing. Chatbots and AI agents don’t present enough of a use case yet to justify sticking it on people’s shirts en masse. We are also at the point of artificial intelligence saturation, where technology is in everything. So what makes your AI headphones special?

“That’s the problem with a lot of these startups; If AI is their differentiator, then what’s going on with everyone else? Sag says. “Now there are stakes on the table.”

Wearables and devices built specifically to provide some AI-powered services might seem like the logical next step in AI evolution, but the utility we’ve gotten from them so far is limitless.

“The reality is that we don’t need special equipment for the features or use cases that they exhibit,” says Ubrani. “Your phone can do most of these things.”

Within a year, AI went from being a stand-alone selling point to something akin to a slightly stronger form of vanilla.

Making a dent

Of course, there are AI hardware success stories Meta-Ban Ray such as smart glasses that do well by incorporating artificial intelligence is one of its many features in a device that offers use cases—taking pictures, listening to music—far beyond what AI can do on its own. (It will certainly be a year full of smart glassesand CES is full of them.)

Meta is certainly one of the giants with the resources to incorporate AI into their services. Smaller manufacturers may not have the financial stamina to compete, but they also feel pressure to get in the game.

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

Sag says there are ways to stand out from big devices and other AI devices in the mix. Privacy, for example. Meta may have the most successful smart glasses right now, but the company’s platform is a data cesspool, ready to absorb almost every bit of information it can get about its users. Indicates opponents like Sag Even Realities or Looktech.AImakes smart glasses that allow extensive user control over privacy settings and don’t necessarily send every bit of data back to the mothership. According to him, startups like this can use a more secure approach to differentiate their products and offer users an alternative to large, data mining platforms.

No matter how safe and secure the technology is, people will still want something that is useful to them.

“The next wave of this is, well, what does AI do for me right now other than say it’s AI?” Sag says. “A lot of AI doesn’t necessarily increase sales because it doesn’t really change people’s lives.”