AI wasn’t the major driving force for buying consumer gadgets in 2024, and the trend will likely not change in 2025.
In March 2024, Google held its annual developer conference, which was packed with AI-related news, so much so that the company's representatives referenced AI 121 times in a presentation that lasted 110 minutes.
The event wasn’t much different from other major tech conferences and reflected a broader trend across the industry as companies focused on integrating AI into their devices and services.
Over the year, many promising announcements were made, including Open AI’s Sora video generator, improved language models from Open AI, Google, and more.
However, when it came to consumer products, AI features were mostly unnecessary add-ons, providing little to no value to users.
AI may deter consumers
Smartphones are a good example of this trend. Apple, the most popular smartphone brand in the US, announced its Apple Intelligence features at WWDC in June, causing excitement among its fans.
Around half of the tools, though, including the most anticipated virtual assistant, Siri, with contextual abilities, are not yet available for Apple users in the US. Meanwhile, Europeans can’t yet use any of Apple's AI features and will be able to do so only in April 2025.
Those who can use the first batch of Apple's AI features aren’t satisfied. According to a survey of AI-capable device owners conducted by tech gadget sales platform Sell Cell, 73% of iPhone users say that AI features have little to no value for them. Meanwhile, slightly more than 50% of Apple users haven’t tried Apple Intelligence at all.
When it comes to Android, and Samsung in particular, AI appears to be valued even less. 86% of Samsung users said that they saw little to no value in the Galaxy’s AI features. Similarly, over 50% of respondents reportedly haven’t even tried Samsung’s AI tools.
For some users, AI features may actually be something that turns them off. A study published this year found that while “AI in a product description may be viewed as a sign of that product having advanced capabilities and features, it may also trigger fear and concern among consumers.“
What about AI PCs?
Things aren’t much different in another major tech category, computers and tablets, .
A report by market watcher IDC concluded that users don’t buy AI PCs for AI features. While the company expects AI PC adoption to grow, in the short term, the adoption will largely be driven by the need for new PCs rather than a specific need for AI PCs.
A summer poll of PC users revealed that 84% don’t want to pay extra for AI hardware, 9% are unsure, and only 7% say that they would.
The most ironic thing is that when users do pay more, they can not physically use the marketed capabilities.
The AI PC is defined as one that has a neural processing unit – a dedicated chip for handling AI tasks – that can achieve 45 TOPS, or tera operations, per second.
However, developers were capable of achieving only slightly more than 1% of that. In reality, the bandwidth is still a significant limitation, and it will not change any time soon.
Another major issue when it comes to the practical usage of AI PCs is that there still isn’t much software that allows one to use AI capabilities.
What’s next?
In 2025, both AI-capable PCs and smartphone adoption will grow as the devices become the new norm. However, the general public's stance will likely not change much, as we can expect fewer groundbreaking AI announcements.
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said a few weeks ago that he expects AI progress to slow down in 2025 as the low-hanging fruit is gone.
While his words were aimed at broader AI development, particularly the progress of large language models, they can also be used to illustrate AI in consumer tech.
As the pace of innovation slows, we will see fewer new features in 2025, and those that already exist, such as AI-based real-time translations and writing tools, will add only minor improvements.
Beyond smartphones, tablets, and PCs, the broader realm of consumer tech includes wearables like smartwatches and smart rings. This category could significantly benefit from AI integrations, as it has the potential to allow users to get real-time insights into sleep, nutrition, and sports habits and improve overall health.
However, these devices' AI capabilities remain too limited to drive widespread adoption, and this is unlikely to change dramatically in 2025.
In contrast, smart glasses are one wearable category poised to grow through AI. They allow users to ask questions about real-world objects, get directions, and immerse themselves in virtual worlds with the help of AI.
Many companies are preparing to launch their AI glasses, and we will definitely see greater adoption. However, throughout 2025, they will likely stay only a niche product.
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