| NOTAS: | "Consumer technology is entering a phase where science fiction becomes reality and unthinkable scenarios such as machines outsmarting humans are seriously considered by technology leaders and politicians. Artificial intelligence (AI) will grow to become a core differentiating feature and purchase driver for devices. This report looks at how consumers will react to these developments and what that will mean for service providers and vendors in 2018. Object smartification drives the growth of the consumer Internet of Things (IoT) and forms the basis on which consumer-facing AI services work, from the data they gather to the use cases they create. What will be the extent to which those services will reach consumers, and where and when? And how will they be perceived? Those are key questions that are yet to be answered, but 2018 will provide a view of what the true implications of AI-capable devices will be. Ovum forecasts that 2.47 billion voice-AI capable devices will be sold globally in 2018. The next step will be vision AI – the ability for devices to recognize and analyze the images they capture. Samsung Bixby Vision and Google Lens are examples of this – unveiled mid-2017, they will effectively impact consumers in 2018. One of the main use cases for vision AI is augmented reality (AR). Mobile AR (i.e. AR via a smartphone) will be a dominant theme in 2018, kick-started with the launch of iPhone 8 and ARKit-based applications in September 2017. This will help Apple strengthen its premium smartphone market lead in 2018." |
