On October 24, the Financial Times opinion column published an article by Matt Rogers, co-founder of Nest, a Google-owned smart device company, on Thursday. Rogers said,The success of generative AI still needs to be supported by popular hardware. OpenAI should team up with Apple’s former design director Jony Ive to develop mobile phones.
Ivey and Ultraman
Rogers noted that the first batch of AI hardware released has failed for one simple reason: they were built on hype rather than actual functionality.Take Humane's AI Pin (similar to a brooch), for example, which promised to replace smartphones. But in reality, the wearable device doesn't integrate well with the phone functions people use every day, such as email, and requires users to learn awkward new gestures. What's more, no one wants to talk over clothes in public or otherwise.
Despite these hardware failures, Rogers believes that the trajectory of generative AI remains closely tied to hardware. For this technology to truly reach its potential, it must integrate into the physical world around people. This means it has to be integrated into the phone. The hardware graveyard of the past decade is littered with devices that promised to replace mobile phones but ended up selling only a handful of units before dying. Smartphones have endured because their interfaces are intuitive and easy to use, and they have become deeply embedded in people's psyches (and pockets).
At the beginning of this year, OpenAI acquired the hardware startup company of former Apple designer Ive for US$6.4 billion. This is the largest bet in the field of AI hardware to date.It is also an opportunity to define how this technology can be integrated into human life on a large scale. But to be successful, Ive and OpenAI cannot stop at building smart speakers or AI accessories (which is reportedly the team’s current research and development focus), but must focus on mobile phones.
Rogers said Ive’s team is among the best in the world because Rogers has worked with most of them in Apple’s engineering labs. However, they are currently lacking in software talent, which is the key to the long-term success of the iPhone and a problem that Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman need to solve. The success of hardware is inseparable from meeting the daily high-frequency needs of users. It must make operations simpler, faster, better, and more interesting. Engineering ingenuity and media hype alone are far from enough.
There's one last hurdle.To build an AI smartphone outside the Apple ecosystem, you must rely on Google's infrastructure.Currently, Android is the only commercially available open source mobile operating system. Ive's background at Apple and OpenAI's competitive relationship with Google may make this difficult to accept, but it will be the fastest and most effective way for Ive to realize a return on OpenAI's investment.