Intelligent tech grabs spotlight at Berlin fare

Firms shifting focus from hardware to software

The gadgets on display at Berlin’s mega consumer electronics fair this week may not look radically different, but they are smarter than ever before and designed to meet our every need — often before we’ve even thought of it ourselves.

As smartphones and other electronic devices make greater use of artificial intelligence (AI), the digital assistants already pervasive in our lives are set to become more intuitive and play a bigger role in our homes, observers said.

The humble television, overshadowed in recent years as viewers streamed their favourite shows on tablets and phones, is also poised for a comeback with better-than-ever screen quality and online applications.

“AI (is going) to make our daily life easier,” Klaus Boehm of consultancy Deloitte said ahead of the annual six-day trade show which kicks off Friday.

Boehm pointed to Amazon’s and Google’s voice-controlled speakers that can answer questions, turn off the lights and do our online shopping as prime examples of the “smart home” trend.

And in the race to be the smartest, developers are focussing not on hardware, but on more intelligent software to woo consumers.

Such is the emphasis on AI this year that Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei, the world’s third largest, will use the IFA stage not to present a new model but to unveil its first personal assistant, hoping to rival the dominance of Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Samsung’s Bixby