The old saying goes that, with tech, you should never buy the first generation of anything new.
Wait for the devs to work out the kinks, then check back.
Were now two years into the AI revolution, and were being dragged into the third.
Its not there yet.
This year was big on AI, butnext yearwill show the true promise of on-equipment artificial intelligence come alive.
Where have we heard that one before?
The Rabbit R1 is supposed to be your AI-everything device. The latest beta update finally added a “teach mode” that was promised at the start. Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
In 2024, AI-specific devices fell flat.
AI on Mac or PC hasnt made a strong impression either.
The main AI applications seem to becoders finding ways to kill their own industry.
The big Copilot+ PC release resulted in a few, awkward AI image generator apps and video transcriptions. Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Otherwise, grifters are using AI to fill the internet withfakes,junk, andslop.
On-machine AI pushes regular consumers to write or summarize emails with AI.
That doesnt exactly sound like the killer AI app.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, speaks to the media as he arrives at the Sun Valley Lodge for the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 11, 2023. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Thats why big tech isnow pushing agentic AI.
Companies promise large language models will do all your busywork for you seamlessly, non-intrusively.
Perhaps,with agents,AI can come alivein 2025.
We have only seen some demos of how this AI will work.
Surveys showthatcurrent AI featuresdont enthuseApple and Android users.
In essence, big tech needs agentic AI to take off.
Without it, regular users will wonder what the fuss was for.
There was an avalanche of bad products so big we didnt have the time to cover it all.
Ive used Timekettles X1 Interpreter Hub, a pocket-sized translator stick that touts its AI translation capabilities.
It could hold its own back and forth from English to Spanish in our tests.
It was insulting and hilarious in equal measure to my Urdu-speaking colleague.
It did worse in some other languages than the Google Translate app.
At least those glasses can still take pictures without needing cloud-based AI, something other devices cant manage.
The promise of gadget-specific AI was squashed again and again.
TheRabbit R1launched a few weeks after the Humane pin.
Thelaunch was a disaster.
Users quickly opened the LAM and found that the Android-based OScould run on phones.
Most of its capabilities were facilitated through the cloud.
There has been more AI-centric hardware, like thePlaud NotePin, which offers AI-based transcription and note-taking.
It works thanks to a limited use case.
Inevitably, you will ask whether your current equipment can handle these same capabilities.
Google has Pixel Recorder, and iPhones and Macs have voice memos with transcription capabilities.
To their credit, AI hardware developers have tried to improve their devices.
In November, Rabbit updated its OS to allow custom AI agents with aTeach mode.
This was essentially promised with the LAM half a year ago.
The switch from AI unit to AI agent unit was seamless.
We expect more of these kinds of devices at CES 2025 next month.
That was the story with Qualcomms Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips.
Microsoft christened any PC with Qualcomms ARM-based chip, a Copilot+ PC.
All those AI PCs with Intels Meteor Lake were left out in the cold.
Yes, they could, he told me.
The only issue was the lack of apps.
For the first time in the history of tech, the technology outpaced the available applications.
It was up to the developers to meet demand, he said.
None of those previous Intel chips met the requirements to be Copilot+.
Using those features was another matter.
The PCs shipped with the new Copilot button for instant access to Microsofts favored chatbot.
Microsoft delayed the feature just before many OEMs planned to release their first laptops.
Security researchers proved that screenshot transcriptions could be accessed without any real security layer.
Microsoft onlyallowed Windows 11 beta testersaccess to the feature in November.
Judging by the latest beta build, Recall still requires some fine-tuning.
If youre okay with your life andsome potentially sensitive infobeing screenshotted, its handy for those with bad memories.
ChatGPT Integration offers little more than a typical Google search.
The NPUs for these devices can only run simplistic or background AI tasks.
The processor promises 67 TOPS.
You would have to be a very dedicated user to tell the difference between models.
A big reason AI is becoming agentic is the wall.
Thats not to say AI models cant improve.
Newer models, likeOpenAIs GPT-o1 model, are designed with better reasoning in mind.
But better benchmarks dont necessarily result in better results for a base user.
If youre not already impressed with todays AI models, you probably wont be with next years big releases.
Thats why agents have to take off.
We’re trying something fundamentally new.
Late last year, Ispeculated about the rise of AI on PC.
This was before Microsoft brought the Copilot key kicking and screaming into this world.
prefs arent sexy, but making it easier for users would be a boon.
Apple has promised that Apple Intelligence will instead be the kind of everyday-life assistant.
This isnt the sort of AI that can be handled on-rig; it requires cloud processing.
It promotes a Copilot Studio for businesses to create their in-house AI agents.
It claims it uses this information to improve Google products and machine-learning technologies.
Agentic AI is coming.
It will be the same old, in the endless march of hype.
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