Are we in an AI bubble? It’s almost certain: every booth at IFA had the word “AI” on their banners and brochures. Walking around IFA proved that innovation is still alive and well, but AI has become more of a marketing term than a feature. From AI-powered dishwashers to AI in something as small as a GaN charger, it’s easy to drop marketing jargon to make your product seem better than your competitor’s. But is it really game-changing AI? Well, after 5 days at IFA, here are 5 products we saw that are using AI well in a way that’s meaningful to users and authentic in the “AI” sense of the word.
1. NotePin de Plaud AI
Debuting at IFA (though the product is coming soon), the PLAUD NotePin builds on the popular Plaud NOTE device that launched last year. Leveraging AI models like ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, the NOTE could record meetings as well as phone calls, and translate/transcribe them in seconds. With the NotePin, the company hopes to make this technology even more portable. Encased in a tiny metal pendant, the NotePin is like your own personal assistant that you can wear around your neck or even on your wrist. It lets you record everything from personal notes to meetings, leveraging GPT 4o and Claude 3.5 to integrate AI into your recordings. You can give your NotePin a shopping list and it will meaningfully link you to a place where you can buy it online, or give it a to-do list and it will add it to your calendar. The NotePin comes in two colors – silver and dark gray – and can be worn on your wrist, around your neck, or even clipped to your lapel.
2. Timekettle W4 Pro AI Interpreter Headphones
Built on the larger vision of The Traveler’s Guide’s Babel Fish, the W4 Pro interpreter headphones let you speak and understand up to 40 different languages and over 90 accents. Designed by the folks at Timekettle (known for their incredible translators since 2016), the W4 Pro are AI-powered interpreter headphones. Wear one and give one to another person, and you can both have a seamless conversation in two separate languages. A 3-microphone array ensures crystal-clear audio capture, and Timekettle’s proprietary algorithm gives you 95% accurate results. Where AI comes into play is in the processing and post-processing. When you speak, instead of translating entire sentences (which can be time-consuming), the W4 Pro breaks sentences into meaningful segments, translating them instead. This turns out to be much faster, with a delay of just 0.2 seconds between speech and translation. Once you’ve had a conversation, Timekettle also applies AI to the entire transcript, allowing you to extract meaningful information and insights from your conversation – very useful when meeting with multilingual professionals.
3. Honor AI on Phone/Tablet/Laptop
I strongly believe that we live in an era where AI vision can be the difference between a business and its future. With ChatGPT and Google Gemini making so much noise, it’s hard for smartphone brands to implement AI on their own, but Honor seems to have found an incredible niche. Honor showcased some notable AI features on its devices during their keynote on September 5th and 6th at IFA. The phones, tablets, and laptops feature AI-powered two-way noise cancellation, meaning the device cancels out noise not only on outgoing audio but also on incoming audio. So, you can talk to someone in a noisy environment and your AI noise cancellation will handle their noisy audio. Other AI features include drag-and-drop search on the Magic V3 foldable phone and MagicPad 2 tablet… but by far the most impressive use of AI is in Honor’s deepfake detection tech that works for both audio and video deepfakes. Building on an ability to catch scammers and phishers in the act, the Magic V3, MagicPad 2, and MagicBook Art 14 all feature this new tech working seamlessly to prevent you from being scammed or defrauded by deepfake calls.
4. Google Gemini on Pixel devices
It would be incomplete to talk about AI without mentioning its biggest players: Google. With a dedicated booth at IFA this year, Google invited people to play with its latest devices, the Pixel Buds, the new Pixel Watch, and the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9 Fold devices. It’s a difference hearing about AI features at a keynote than seeing them in real life, which is why Google had a dedicated Gemini area on its booth, where consumers could go and get their first look at the new Gemini features coming to Pixel devices later this year. This included the powerful new voice assistant, as well as Google’s improved AI image editing tools, and the newly unveiled Pixel Studio feature.
5. Samsung SmartThings and Bixby with artificial intelligence
Samsung unveiled several AI-powered features at IFA 2024, underscoring its commitment to “AI for All.” The SmartThings platform showcased AI capabilities for security, sustainability, and device control, including the map view for home monitoring. Bespoke AI devices offered personalized solutions, such as the Family Hub refrigerator with image recognition and recipe suggestions. Samsung also showcased a timely upgrade to its AI voice assistant, Bixby, at IFA 2024. The enhanced Bixby offers more personalized services based on the user’s voice and location, enabling greater interaction with devices and appliances. It adapts to the user’s daily routines, offering tailored solutions, whether adjusting device settings or integrating with other SmartThings-enabled devices.
