The Systematic team was at CES last week and wanted to share some key takeaways from this incredible event. While it was certainly the year of AI, we can assure you this post was written by humans 😊.
Is it really AI?
A few years ago, marketing started calling products with firmware “smart” products. They were smart in the sense that a decision path could be followed in the firmware-based user inputs, external inputs from sensors, etc. While a lot of the products we saw this year did support AI via a connected cloud or at the edge, an overwhelming number of the products which used to be “smart” were now marketed as “AI-enabled”. Our takeaway is to do your research and really understand what is meant by “AI-enabled”. Systematic knows the difference and can help you cut through the buzzwords for your next truly “AI-enabled” project.
Buy a brick today and teach it how to be useful later.
Over-the-air updates allow products to expand what they’re capable of by downloading new software. Companies recognized that this allowed them to sell a product on the promise of an eventual upgrade (see Tesla’s Autopilot). The AI hype has turbocharged this buy-now-get-later tendency. Because AI models improve with more training data, some companies are betting the farm on early adopters teaching their products how to do useful things. The Rabbit R1 was an interesting example of this pattern. While teaching your device to do tasks is the ultimate way to customize it, it’s not clear exactly how much the R1 will be able to do out of the box.
Systematic tends to take a different approach. While our AI-enabled products get better over time, we take pride in shipping AI models that are already incredibly useful out of the box. Our key takeaway: Early adopters are becoming underpaid AI trainers. 😉
First-generation AI-enabled robotics are paving the way to an exciting future.
There were some very cool AI-enabled robotics showcased at CES. Some, like Parkie, are already useful. Parkie is an automated valet parking robot that can operate 24/7 with no upgrades to existing parking infrastructure.
On the other hand, some robots we saw were more niche. ORo is a pet companion for busy families. While this might be a must-have for a small subset of families, we think the more exciting impact will come a few years from now. The lessons learned from in-home robots like ORo interacting with family members (even the furry ones) will be used to pave the way for the next generation of “professional” in-home robotics such as in-home health care and elderly care.
The lessons learned by your new robot dog may one day inform the behavior of the robot that cares for your elderly family members.
The future is certainly going to be interesting. AI and robotics are going places, and Systematic is here to help you cut through the noise and deliver high-quality solutions and products with substance.