Amazon Devices Chief Panos Panay Sees a Future Where AI Devices Replace the Need for Apps
Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt, Amazon devices chief Panos Panay described a future in which ambient AI devices work in the background, anticipating users' needs instead of waiting for commands.
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Amazon is betting 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 Amazon's vice president of devices, Alexa and Leo, took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt on Thursday to talk about where personal computing is headed.
“A lot of times, what you're doing right now—what we're all doing right now—is we have to remember what we're asking our tool to do for us,” Panay began. "It's like point, shoot, return," Panay continued. "I think where we're going is a world [that] starts with peripheral devices."
By "peripheral devices" he means devices that work silently in the background, using sensors and artificial intelligence to help you figure out what needs to be done, not the other way around, where you tell the device what to do.
"As it works in the background, you can be more present. You can do more. You're going to spend more time with people ... you're not afraid if you miss something. It's incredibly powerful," Panay said.
Amazon's biggest entry into the space is a series of new Bee devices that it introduced on Thursday, which include a band that you can wear around your wrist or detach to wear as a pendant, as well as a new strap, a credit-card-sized device that attaches magnetically to the back of your smartphone.
These gadgets passively record audio and take notes of your day, finding to-dos, reminders and insights you might need to refer to later. To balance the need for usefulness with user privacy, Bee devices don't actually store the raw audio of your conversations. They process the audio in real time and delete it when they are done. Transcripts of conversations are encrypted using keys that your device generates and controls. This means that no one else, including Amazon employees, can access those files unless you intentionally share them.
Privacy is a key consideration for how these new peripheral devices work, Panay said.
"You have to give that control to the customers," he said. "Every product is different, but for the Bee in particular, as an example in an environmental space like that, you have to design with privacy in mind. And that's what we do. It's very important."
The executive, who came to Amazon after 19 years at Microsoft, where he oversaw the development of Surface devices, has spent much of his life thinking about how personal computing will evolve. With Bee—and ambient computing in general—Panay also envisions a future where the idea of interacting with apps becomes less important as more tasks are handled through artificial intelligence.
"Do I think we have a future where there's a little bit of balance — a whole generation that doesn't say, 'Give me the program,' but I just have to figure out what I need?" yes, me I think that transformation is coming. I think this is the next generation."
That doesn't necessarily mean the smartphone itself won't continue to be an important personal computing device (as much as Amazon likes an Alexa tablet or Echo smart speaker to be), Panay noted. Instead, he believes a new crop of devices will emerge that use sensors to better understand users and bring intelligence to the world around you.
I'm not a fan of saying that one form factor replaces another. "I don't think so." "I think there's a layer of information that ties it all together ... and it should be useful," he explained.
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