If there's one thing I learned from Berlin's 2025 IFA consumer tech show, it's that AI has taken over marketing, too. Even with my smart home focus, it was difficult to find a new product or announcement that didn't have "AI" somewhere in its promotion. That's a problem for the average tech enjoyer, because it's no longer clear what AI means, if it's actually AI in the modern sense (which some would argue isn't even true AI at all), or if it adds anything worth having.
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When is AI actually AI?
Ai like Samsung's Bespoke sounds fancy, but sometimes it's just basic algorithms underneath. Ajay Kumar/CNET
When I say artificial intelligence was everywhere at IFA, I mean it. The buzzword showed up in SwitchBot's fuzzy bear robots and prompt-based wall decorations as well as Roborock's smart mapping robot lawn mowers and Hisense's refrigerator guides for recipes. Samsung brought all three of its AI brands to IFA, with Bespoke AI for appliances, Vision AI for home entertainment and Galaxy AI for its phones. And you better believe that voice assistants are now called "AI voice assistants" whenever possible.
But when so many companies slap on that AI label, it starts losing meaning. How many of these new devices actually have the modern definition of AI? I mean the common generative AIs, typically powered by LLMs, that we see every day in the form of Google Gemini and ChatGPT, which can summarize information and "talk" to us in conversational ways. Many do have some generative capabilities, but calling them AI in the same vein as fully fledged chatbots is a stretch at best.
Other uses of AI make it clear it's a branding term, something that marketing needs to have these days. It's disappointing and confusing when there are no standard AI features to be found in an AI-branded product. For example, when Samsung says its Bespoke AI can save energy used by its washing machines, it appears to refer to algorithms and sensors that control washing cycles, something that would never be called "AI" a few short years ago.
Moves like this can cheapen the term and distract from products that really do have built-in artificial intelligence -- when everything's AI, nothing is. Or at least people start to feel that way, which is a marketing problem companies have only begun to face.
On the other hand, props to lighting company Lepro, which came to IFA ready to explain that its voice assistant really was created using an LLM trained on design concepts to help pick the right colors associated with a variety of activities. Details like these make it easier to see if the AI is really there and what it's doing (that's also helpful to me as a reviewer).
When is AI worth having?
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