Remember when people bought technology because they wanted the hardware? When it was about smartphones from Apple or Samsung, or smart speakers from Amazon or Google? When hardware was the dog and software was the tail? Maybe you still think this way? Many people do, but the consumer technology space is changing at a fundamental level. There’s a new dog in town called AI, and hardware is its tail.
Hardware and software
Apple made hardware cool. After a strong start, their personal computers were quickly overwhelmed by the more powerful, more flexible and less expensive Windows-based PCs. Apple came roaring back with the iPod, the iPhone and a marketing campaign that convinced millions that portable technology platforms are a defining characteristic of personal identity. Apple’s ads depicted iStuff owners as cool; Samsung ads portrayed them as clueless and pretentious. In a hardware-oriented world like this, the smartphone you carry defines you.
Software was an afterthought. It didn’t matter which web browser, email platform or music service you preferred as long as it ran on your hardware. It didn’t matter if you used Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari, it mattered if you had an iPhone. Apple’s map app was so bad it quickly became a subject of ridicule. It didn’t matter. Everybody went back to Google Maps and kept saying “my iPhone” instead of “my phone”.
The rise of consumer-facing AI
Consumer-facing AI is something new in the world. It isn’t software designed to perform a function like browsing the web or dealing with email. AI is software designed to facilitate interaction between the user and the world in a variety of different contexts. It mediates user interaction with both the digital world of websites, email and music services, and the physical world of thermostats, home lighting and audio-visual devices.
AI reverses the relationship between the user and the technology. When hardware was the thing, the technology defined the user. The iPhone created an image, and the user bought into the image and adopted it as their own. AI doesn’t indicate who the user is, it adapts to what the user does. It learns what you do, when and where you do it, and then helps you do it more easily. AI isn't about branding and user identity, it's about providing what you need in order to do what you want to do.
Inclusion, exclusion and hardware as an afterthought
Apple showed that exclusion is a viable business strategy in a hardware-oriented world. When people really want iStuff, Apple can profit from limiting software developer’s access to their hardware. Apple’s company-censored, walled and limited garden is the obvious example. The only software that bends the knee to Apple’s demands is made available to the customer, everything else is excluded.
This exclusiveness contributes to the role hardware plays in establishing identity and self-perceived status. You’re the special one who listens to Apple Music on your Homepod, not the generic one who listens to music from any one of several music service providers on a home speaker.
When the focus shifts from hardware to AI, exclusion shifts toward inclusion. Consumer-facing AI is all about facilitating interaction with the world, and AI-driven voice recognition allows that interaction to take place directly through a wide variety of objects. AI is available in smartphones, desktops, laptops, tablets, an ever-increasing variety of smart speakers and speaker-screens, cars, TVs, home security systems, thermostats, light bulbs, kitchen appliances and more. AI is inherently Catholic with regard to hardware.
The two main drivers behind the AI-oriented world, Google and Amazon, are racing to put the Assistant and Alexa in as many hardware platforms as they can. This is a business strategy that embraces inclusion rather than exclusion. From the AI vendor’s point of view, it doesn’t matter which hardware platform carries its AI, as long as its AI is available in that hardware space. Google would like it if your thermostat is made by Nest, but one made by Ecobee is also good because you’re still talking to the Assistant.
The inclusiveness of the AI-oriented world contributes to hardware becoming an afterthought. Most human behavior is goal directed. Hardware is used as a means to the end of achieving a goal, not as an end in itself. People don't want to just use their smart speaker, they want to use their smart speaker to check their calendar, set an alarm or find out the temperature. It doesn't matter what brand their smart speaker is as long as it does the job and works with the same AI the person uses to plan their day, set reminders, make phone calls, listen to and send email and texts, listen to music, control the mapping software in their car, and answer whatever question they might have about just about anything. The hardware is secondary, the AI that controls it is primary.
Apple’s problem and the Google gorilla
The move from buying a hardware brand to buying into an AI system poses a problem for Apple. Apple’s business is selling hardware and they’re very good at it. Their rigid and exclusionary walled software garden is an important component of their successful business model. Apple is deeply invested in the hardware world and has very little to offer in an AI world that emphasizes inclusion rather than exclusion.
Apple could have been a leader in an AI-oriented world. Siri had a three-year head start on Alexa and a five-year head start on the Assistant. Rather than take advantage of its lead by developing its AI, Apple did nothing. Siri was treated as a gimmick to sell iPhones until better technology from a competitor came along and a new gimmick was needed. The result is that Siri lags so far behind the other AI systems that it’s not even in the race.
The recently released Homepod is an ideal example of Apple’s problem (this issue is dealt with in depth in a separate article). Apple is marketing it as a hardware device in a consumer space that is defined by AI. Google’s Home and Amazon’s Echo are marketed in terms of all the things they can do for you; the Homepod is marketed by how good it sounds. It’s sold merely as a speaker because as a smart speaker the Homepod is a loser as soon as it’s taken out of the box and plugged in. Siri isn’t smart on her best day, and the version of Siri in the Homepod is even worse than Siri on an iPhone.
And then there’s Google. Google is King Kong in an AI-oriented world. It’s AI has the potential to be more useful in more situations than any of the others because Google has gathered more information about more people than anyone else. The Assistant knows more about more things because it draws on Google’s world-leading search technology. It understands you better and is easier to talk to because of Google’s advanced expertise in natural language processing. Most importantly, Google’s fundamental commitment to investing its formidable resources in research and world-class expertise in AI has put it so far ahead of the field that everyone else is playing catch up from a long way behind.
Moving from hardware to AI
The ability to mediate our interactions with the world through a voice-activated, ever-present AI is something new. The AI vendors are in the early stages of learning what AI can do for consumers. New functionality is being tested; kinks are being ironed out. At the same time, consumers are learning what they can do with the current generation of AI systems. The consumer space is in flux.
This sounds like what always happens when new technology is introduced. But it’s not. Something never seen before is happening here.
When you use an AI, the AI learns about you and adapts to your needs and behavior patterns. It tunes itself to the user. The more you use it, the more it knows about you and the better it becomes at anticipating your needs and surfacing the information, software platforms or hardware devices you want at the time and place you want them. The user and the technology adapt to each other. Their relationship is based on mutual understanding, not the conference of identity or status. Your AI may not love you like your mother, but it will almost certainly know you better and help you more. That’s a new thing.
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