Amazon is placing its bets on ambient computing, not apps, as the future of personal AI.
Alongside the launch of its new AI wearables from Bee, Panos Panay, who serves as AmazonâÂÂs SVP of Devices, Alexa & Leo, took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt on Thursday to talk in more depth about where he sees personal computing headed.
âÂÂA lot of times, what youâÂÂre doing right now â what we all do right now â is we have to remember what weâÂÂre asking our tool to do for us,â Panay began, explaining that this is how we engage with our modern smartphones. âÂÂItâÂÂs like point, shoot, return,â Panay continued. âÂÂI think where weâÂÂre headed is a world [that] starts with ambient devices.âÂÂ
By âÂÂambient devices,â he means those that work quietly in the background, using sensors, and AI to help you figure out what needs to be done, instead of the other way around, where youâÂÂre telling the device what you need to do.
âÂÂAs it works in the background, youâÂÂre able to stay more present. YouâÂÂre able to get more done. YouâÂÂre about to spend more time with people⦠youâÂÂre not afraid if you miss something. ItâÂÂs incredibly powerful,â Panay said.
AmazonâÂÂs biggest entry into this space is the set of new Bee devices it introduced on Thursday, which include a band you can wear on your wrist or detach to wear as a pendant, as well as a new credit-card-sized device that attaches magnetically to the back of your smartphone.
These gadgets passively record audio and take notes about your day, finding the to-dos, reminders, and insights you may later need to refer back to. To balance the need to be useful with user privacy, BeeâÂÂs devices donâÂÂt actually store the raw audio from your conversations; they process the audio in real time and then delete it when done. Transcripts of conversations are encrypted using keys that your device creates and controls. That means no one else, including Amazon employees, can access those files unless you intentionally share them.
Panay said that privacy was a key consideration for how these new ambient devices should work.
âÂÂYou have to give customers that control,â he said. âÂÂEvery product is different, but for Bee specifically, as an example in the ambient space like that, you have to design with privacy in mind. And thatâÂÂs what we do. ThatâÂÂs critical.âÂÂ
The executive, who came to Amazon after 19 years at Microsoft where he oversaw the development of Surface devices, has spent a lot of his life thinking about how personal computing will evolve. With Bee â and ambient computing more generally â Panay also envisioned a future where the idea of interacting with apps becomes less important, as more tasks are handled via AI.
âÂÂDo I think we have a future where thereâÂÂs a bit of a balance â a whole generation that doesnâÂÂt say âÂÂgive me the appâ for that, but says it should just understand what I need? Yeah, I do. I think that transformation is coming. I think that is the next generation,â he said.
That doesnâÂÂt necessarily mean the smartphone itself wonâÂÂt continue to be an important personal computing device (as much as Amazon would like it to be an Alexa tablet or Echo smart speaker), Panay pointed out. Rather, he believes a new crop of devices will emerge that use sensors to understand users better, and to bring intelligence to the world around you.
âÂÂIâÂÂm not a proponent that says one form factor is going to replace another. I donâÂÂt think thatâÂÂs the case,â he clarified. âÂÂI think thereâÂÂs an intelligence layer that connects it all⦠and it has to be useful.âÂÂ
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