How much is a smarter smartphone worth? Samsung's answer is from 5499 yuan, OPPO, vivo's answer is from 3999 yuan, and Honor's answer is from 4399 yuan.
In the past few months, mainstream mobile phone manufacturers have begun to formally integrate device side and cloud models into their flagship models, trying to use the technological advancement of artificial intelligence to greatly improve the mobile phone experience, make smartphones smarter, and make consumers more excited.
As a result, the wave of large-scale model mobile phones and AI mobile phones is becoming increasingly turbulent.
However, on the contrary, in the case of steady iteration of core hardware specifications, SOC support for device-side large models, and cloud large-scale model access (device-cloud collaboration), each company's large-model mobile phones are cheaper
According to the starting storage version, the Samsung S24 (8+256GB) is 200 yuan cheaper than the previous generation, the Oppo Find X7 (12+256GB), Vivo X100 (12+256GB) are 500 yuan cheaper than the previous generation, and the Honor Magic6 (12+256GB) is also 100 yuan cheaper than the previous generation.Of course, the pricing of mobile phones is affected by a variety of factors, including last year's storage** fell to the price of cabbage, and major mobile phone manufacturers have hoarded a large number of inventory, which will naturally directly affect the cost. But there is no doubt that at least in the first wave of mobile phone models, consumers have not yet recognized the value of mobile phone models, and manufacturers are not sure of the value of mobile phone models, so they basically choose:
Free Delivery Generative AI capabilities.
But that's just the status quo. Different from the device-side large model that can be directly driven by the mobile phone SOC, today's large model mobile phones are often connected to the cloud large model, and the computing power cost is not low. These costs cannot be borne by the cloud model vendors themselves, and will eventually be transmitted to end users, whether through direct payment or through free methods such as advertising - free is always the most expensive.
From this point of view, the mobile phone model will not be free forever after all.
As observed by Ray Technology at CES 2024,Today, all hardware vendors are thinking about how to redesign their products based on generative AI. Mobile phone manufacturers don't want to miss this wave.
On the Galaxy S24 series, we see that Samsung has chosen to carry the Google Gemini Nano, which is equipped with a large model on the device side, and is connected to the cloud large model of Google (overseas) and (China), in addition to more powerful and natural AI dialogue capabilities, it also brings a series of Galaxy AI features, including generative AI retouching, real-time translation of calls, and other functions.
Generative AI retouching on Find X7, Toure Technologies.
On the Find X7 series, OPPO also brings more powerful natural language understanding capabilities and AI retouching and intelligent call summarization through the Andean end cloud model, and also plans to call third-party applications that cooperate with OPPO through AI, so that users can go to the app to find services and turn them into services to find users.
On the Magic6 series, Honor hopes to create a new ecology of large models, understand user intentions through device-side large models, transform them into more professional prompts, and then meet the needs of more powerful cloud large models, such as the Wenxin large model and the Qianwan large model of air travel.
However, no matter which large-scale mobile phone is, it cannot avoid the collaboration between the device side and the cloud large-scale modelThat is, deploy tens of billions and hundreds of billions of large models in the cloud, and deploy billion-level large models on the mobile phone. Qualcomm CEO Ammon has also repeatedly emphasized the importance of device-cloud collaboration for mobile generative AI experiences.
There is only one question left:Who will solve the cost of computing power from the data center?
In the S24 Ultra's product page, Samsung notes that the Galaxy AI feature will be available for free on supported Samsung Galaxy devices until the end of 2025. Different terms may apply to AI features provided by third parties. It is also noted on the official website of Samsung China:
Galaxy AI features are currently free to use, but Samsung may change some or all of its AI features to a paid service in the future; AI provided by third parties may have different terms that apply.
The head of Samsung Electronics' MX division emphasized in a later ** interview,ThreeStar will not consider monetizing the Galaxy AI business this year, but will focus on allowing more users to experience AI features, and when some users are willing to pay for higher performance, the issue of AI function charging will be considered again.
This is not a problem with the Samsung family. As mentioned above, the current flagship machines give away generative AI functions for free, on the one hand, they dare not challenge consumption habits at this stage, and on the other hand, in the long run, it is impossible to bear the high computing cost of large cloud models.
In the future, advertising may be a viable way to cover costs. But at least for now, other generative AI services, including ChatGPT, have almost no ads, and brutally inserting ads into human-machine conversations is too impactful to the user experience, but there are still a lot of feasibility studies to insert ads elsewhere.
But it's more likely that while generative AI capabilities are available for free today, they could eventually shift to a fee-based model as users become more reliant on these features and the costs of usage climb as usage scales.
ChatGPT (GPT-4) is also paid, pictured ChatGPT
This shift is not without precedent. From the original cloud storage service to the streaming platform, to the various in-app purchases now, the free-to-pay-later path has proven to be an effective strategy to attract users to accept and eventually pay for the service.
For smartphone vendors, offering advanced AI features for free as a trial can engage user users and rely on them over time, making it easier to accept paid models in the future.
Today, when we decide which phone to buy, we probably still focus on the product itself, and don't consider additional paid value-added services. But with the rapid development of AI technology, especially the changes in functionality and experience brought about by large models on mobile phones, we may be approaching another key inflection point.
The most immediate change is that the increase in AI capabilities may drive consumer interest in higher-end, more versatile phones, driving the mobile phone market to a higher end of the market. At the same time, AI capabilities will become more and more central, and software and services may become more important than the hardware itself.
In the long run, this could lead to a shift in the mobile phone sales model from one-time purchases to subscription-based servicesUsers not only buy mobile phone hardware, but also subscribe to services such as software updates and AI functions, and even promote the popularity of hardware subscription models, completely changing the current mobile phone sales and service model.
In fact, hardware subscriptions have long been a fantasy, Apple has discussed hardware subscription plans internally, and ASUS has officially launched a hardware subscription service on laptops. The difference is that if generative AI can change the usage habits of mobile phone users in a real sense, it will undoubtedly make it easier for mobile phone consumers to accept the hardware subscription model, thus profoundly changing the pattern of the mobile phone market again.
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