Smart home, machine learning and discovery — Benedict Evans

* ‘Smart home’ today is in the same place as electric things in the
home a generation or two ago: everyone will have some of these, but
we’re working out which makes sense. Everyone got a toaster or a
blender, but no-one got an electric can opener, and smart home looks
the same. We’re in discovery mode.

* Machine learning has a lot of the same questions: how do we combine
these commodity components into products that make sense - both in
the home and on platforms and smartphones?

* Part of the challenge of machine learning is not just working out
what problems to solve but working out how to surface that to the
user. Some of this may just be branding - we may need to say ‘this is
‘AI’ to set expectations...

* ‘Smart home’ today is in the same place as electric things in the
home a generation or two ago: everyone will have some of these, but
we’re working out which makes sense. Everyone got a toaster or a
blender, but no-one got an electric can opener, and smart home looks
the same. We’re in discovery mode.

* Machine learning has a lot of the same questions: how do we combine
these commodity components into products that make sense - both in
the home and on platforms and smartphones?

* Part of the challenge of machine learning is not just working out
what problems to solve but working out how to surface that to the
user. Some of this may just be branding - we may need to say ‘this is
‘AI’ to set expectations (and also to lower them).