#44 The Potential of AI Pin: A New Era in User Experience
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Hello friends and welcome back to the Future of UX podcast where we explore the future of user experience, design and tech. I'm Patricia Reiners, your host, and I will guide you through the future of design or guide you into the way of the future of design.

And for everyone who's excited about AI and wants to start using it more strategically, you can download my AI toolkit. It's especially tailored to designers and completely for free. You can just download it by clicking on the link in the description box. Use it. It guides you through the three steps of getting started with AI in your workflows and get ready for the future.

In today's episode, we will dive into the interesting topic of, I would say, like the future of interactions using the AI pin as an example. So for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, the AI pin is a pretty fancy new device that has been some kind of like announced last week.

There has been a huge buzz around that topic for the last couple of months. Two former Apple employees founded a company called Humane and they are developing a new device similar to a smartphone but without a screen. And you can interact with it with gestures, with voice. So very interesting. It's a pretty smart device. Very visionary.

And in this episode, we want to analyze a little bit about what this device actually is, what are the capabilities, and what does it actually mean for us as designers? When we're thinking about user experience design, thinking about that the smartphone is just...

something for a certain era and there is a future without a smartphone. So how will that look like? And this is what we will focus on in this episode. And we will go through four phases. In the first part of the episode, we will talk about what is the AI pin. So even if you have never heard about it, if you haven't checked out any YouTube videos, any news, don't worry. Like we will just talk a little bit about what it is in general and we will have a look at how it actually works.

And that's super interesting. What kind of features are integrated in that device? Then we will talk about the different experiences for the AI pin. And in the end, in topic number four, we will talk about what does all of that actually mean for UX designers, for us as designers, for user experiences or for great experiences for the user in the future.

Okay, I would say let's dive right in and get started with what is the AI pin. So I already mentioned that in the beginning. The AI pin is this new fancy device, like a little bit bigger than a quarter. And you pin this on your jacket in the front, on the front pocket, for example.

And how does it actually work? It's a very smart device combined with AI, with ChatGPT. So there's the ChatGPT-RP integrated. So it's using ChatGPT, actually no apps, only AI. And this is a super visionary gadget designed by two former Apple employees or two former Apple designers who wanted to redefine how we interact with technology.

by combining advanced AI, especially JGPT with this very innovative hardware. And they said that they saw a problem with how much time we are spending in front of our screens and with our phones, and that there are better ways to interact with technologies where we focus on reality and only use technology as a little assistant, as a little support on the side.

Also, everything that I am going to share with you is my personal opinion and my personal thoughts. And it's just what I'm thinking about this technology. I haven't tried it myself, unfortunately, like no one has tried it so far.

So we will definitely see how it is in reality because there's always a huge difference between a super fancy promo video and the reality where things don't work, where there are a lot of problems, things are not working that well. Of course, there's always a gap between those things. But in case you're interested in purchasing it, you can do that. If you're based in the US, I think when you are listening to this podcast episode, you

already will be available to purchase for around 700 US dollars. But you need to be based in the US. Yeah. You can let me know in the comments if you would like to buy one. I honestly really curious to hear your thoughts about it, if it's worth it. But first listen to the whole episode and then you can make your own decision if it's worth it to purchase it or not so much.

So how does the device work? I already mentioned that you pin this in front of your, like on your jacket, right? You have a little pin there. You just place it there. There's a battery included, so you don't need any cables. Also like replace the battery in case it's empty. So that's a really smart move. And you have it with you all time. You could turn it on by just like tapping on it. So there's like a little tap thing.

and ask a question like what is the weather for today or do I have any new emails or please send please send an email to my colleague Tom and send him that I'm a little bit late today these kind of things some basic questions so it's integrated with some of your apps or your software although it's not using any apps basically it's only using AI so chat GPT

I already mentioned like you can tap on it and then you use your own voice to interact with it and it will like speak back to you by also using voice. There is no proper screen. The only screen that they integrated is some kind of LED laser screen that projects on the palm of your hand.

So if you say, okay, you tap on it and then, hey, create me a playlist for a nice beach walk. And then they create a playlist for you. You can place the palm in front of this device and then it projects also play or next song, these little buttons that we know from any kind of music player app, right?

You can use your fingers to navigate. So pressing two fingers together is, I would say, yes, I need to look that up actually. But there are different kind of ways to interact with it just by using your fingers. Next song or okay, these kind of things. So just by using your fingers if you don't want to talk with the device all the time. The second thing.

really interesting feature or actually it's a third interesting feature is that it can make photos and videos. So it can analyze basically the whole surrounding. So imagine you are on a market and you are, you know, you want to buy something nice for dinner.

You're scrolling around and seeing like, oh, there's this cool vegetable, but I don't really know what it is. So you, you know, you take it in your hand and then you ask it, you know, you tap on it and then what kind of vegetable is it? Can I use it for my dinner recipe?

And then the AI pin will analyze the video that it's seeing and give you an answer. Like, oh yeah, those are just like an interesting pepper thing from South America, for example. You can definitely integrate it by replacing it with cauliflower, something like that. So it, like how it's presented in the video, it should work very seamlessly and you can integrate it super well in your day-to-day life. Very, very interesting.

The next feature that I find really interesting is the catch me up mode. So you can just simply say catch me up and the AI pin goes through different kind of text or like the work that you're referring to and only gives you the essence of what you need to know and saving you a lot of time by just like going through everything yourself.

you know, I don't know about you, but I am part of a lot of groups on WhatsApp for example, and there's a lot going on. And if I need to understand about like what is the last important thing that we all agreed on, I need to go through all the text messages. So in that case, the AI PIN could do that for me and just let me know, ah, okay, we all agreed on this specific restaurant and this specific time.

And I don't need to go through all of this content, which is, I think, pretty interesting. So what are the main features? You can interact with it just like by tapping on it. So there's this little tap area. You can tap on it and then you can speak to it. It also speaks back to you. There's a camera included so you can make videos, you can make photos all the time. And it can also analyze the surrounding if the camera and the video is turned on.

There is no real screen integrated, but some kind of like a display with like a laser display that projects on your hand. And you can use your fingers to interact with it. So you can use gestures to interact with it. So pretty interesting and I would say pretty revolutionary. Now let's talk about some of the experiences. So how you can actually use it in your work.

day-to-day life which i also think is super interesting because that explains a little bit about like not only how we would use it as a single person but also about like how our users are going to use it and in the promo video they shared one super interesting example so they said that they are going to help you to track your daily goals or your goals in general

a big topic at the moment for every one of us, keeping track of things. And they shared one example where they had certain almonds in their hands and then they asked the AI pin, "Hey, how many proteins are integrated in those almonds?" And then they got the answer. And then they said, "Hey, I'm going to eat these almonds."

And the AI pin recognized how many almonds it was, how many protein was integrated. And when they asked back about how much protein did I have today, the AI pin remembered the amount of almonds that the person ate. So it gives the right amount of proteins as an answer. And I think this is super interesting when it comes to food, when you want to track certain things.

Or if you want to remember something in a day-to-day life where you don't want to write it down, where you just want someone to remember it, to calculate it for you, to have... This is really like a little assistant on your side, right? And could also be, you know, imagine you have an orange in front of you and you want to know or ask if, you know, if you should... Well, like how much sugar is integrated, for example.

And then you say, can I eat that? Is that healthy? Would this be too much sugar for me? So it can really guide you through this whole process. I see a lot of opportunities when it comes to especially like fitness and health goals and food. Definitely very interesting because a lot of people are already like tracking that, especially if they're in the like if they're athletes or really into sports or something like that.

It can also be very interesting if you need feedback on something or if you need kind of info in infos on something. So this week I was invited by one of the biggest corporates in Spain to give a talk about generative AI.

And the location of this event was absolutely beautiful. It was at the Miro Foundation in Barcelona. I loved it. It was like one of the best events and places. I'm super happy to be a part of that. I really loved it. And at the end of this event, we all went through the museum. We got a little guided tour, which was absolutely beautiful. But then I thought, oh, it would be so cool. Like there were some paintings in the museum.

In the museum where the guy didn't talk about. But I was really curious about like what these paintings are. So I made some pictures and I tried to look to find them online. And I read some of the insights about it. And I thought that would be such a great use case for the AI pin, right? Because the AI pin would...

Follow me through the whole experience and I could just like ask, tell me a little bit about that painting. It would make an, analyze the painting through image recognition, recognize what kind of painting it is. Look up things maybe on Wikipedia, somewhere online, and then explain to me what I'm actually seeing there and give me some insights.

Fascinating. Super interesting. The same also works, of course, for the work environment, right? So when you're thinking about business cases. So imagine you are working on a presentation, on a design. You have the AI pin just by your side and just like ask, hey, I have this screen right in front of me. What do you think about that graph? Of course, you need to be very specific about what you actually want to ask, but you can ask for feedback for any kind of content for information that you need.

And at the moment, how we can do that is we are taking a picture, we can upload that picture to chat GPT, for example, and then ask for a third output that we actually, that we want to have, right? Like analyze that, give us feedback, give us information, these kinds of things. But there are a lot of steps in between and the AI pin would remove all the steps and bring us right to the end result that we want to have. Super interesting.

And there's also another really interesting way of experiencing this device, which is recording. Because I don't know about you, but every time someone asked me about a superpower that I would like to have, I said, I would like to record everything that I'm seeing.

You know, I had so many experiences in my life where I thought I would have loved to just record these experiences and just like go over it again and again and experiencing it again and again. I think like everyone has their beautiful experiences and you, I mean, you still have them in your head, but it would be so nice to have a video of it and just like watch it all over again. So this is possible now because when you have the AI pin, you put it on YouTube.

You can, I think like it's double tap or something like that and then it starts recording. So in a couple of seconds you can start record something, you can start pictures of very spontaneous moments. Super interesting. Although I of course need to mention that there are definitely some difficulties coming with it. Because I don't know about you but

recording something or thinking about, oh, I need to record something really brings you out of that moment. So it's not that you're really experiencing it when you think about like, oh, I'm recording it at the moment. And what about the people that you are recording that are in front of you? Are they okay with it? Do they need to agree? Do they know that it's recording? So a lot of privacy related questions that I'm curious about and

thing that comes into my mind maybe that's a little bit random but I just needed to think about it is the episode from Black Mirror maybe some of you remember that episode where there's actually a couple and they have smart contact lenses where they can record everything basically it's connected with a little thing in their brain on their head and they're recording everything

And they can also like put everything that they are seeing that they have seen in the past on a screen and then re-watch these experiences. Yeah, to make it short, I think like the woman is cheating on the man and then they're re-watching the whole procedure again. So it's crazy. And it reminded me a little bit of that episode. Yeah. Although I'm excited about the new opportunities, some things...

are a little bit scary and I think we need to make sure that they are designed properly, I would say. Okay, let's move to the last point, which is what does it mean for UX? And I think

This is probably the most interesting one, because even if I'm excited to use it as a person, for me, the most interesting thing is like, what does it mean for design? What does it mean for our users? What does it mean for technology in general? And what I find so fascinating about this design is that, you know, we all think about apps. Apps are everything. But the truth is,

The user doesn't care about an app. They care about the outcome, about the result. They have a problem. For example, they want to contact a friend and let them know something. So they open WhatsApp, they type in the message, and then they send it. It's not about WhatsApp. They don't care if it's WhatsApp or if it's another tool, right?

They care about that they are getting this message across, that they are sending this message and that the person who needs to receive this message receives it. That's the only thing they care about. Of course, also that like conversations are private and nothing is shared, things like that, of course, right? But in the end, what we can, like one of the things that we can keep out of that conversation or get out of that discussion about the AI pin is that

It removes apps and it focuses on the user intent and the user need and the desired outcome. And this is super interesting because it helps us to rethink apps in general. Do we still need it? Is it still something that people want and use? I mean, the obvious answer is no.

probably not in the long term, but how are we going to arrange that and use that for our own companies, for our own devices, for our own tools? And I think for me, this is super fascinating. And the second thing, of course, is the way how we interact with technology. At the moment, it's mainly tap, right? So we are tapping on a button, we are typing something,

Voice, a little bit with maybe like a voice message here and there. But even Alexa, Siri, these devices, who's really using it on a daily basis? No one. So this will definitely change with these devices. Using voice as an input, as an output. The same with gestures. Now, imagine you are in a train, you're somewhere with a lot of people. You might not want to use your voice, right?

But I think overall, it's very interesting to remove the display, to get people a little bit back into reality and to really focus on the desired outcome and provide it to them with more, I would say, like natural ways of interacting with technologies. Super fascinating.

So this will definitely bring a lot of changes and I am so excited to try it to see how it actually works, how it feels like and how are people behaving and using it. So exciting times ahead. And also a lot of challenges because especially with the videos, the privacy issues.

How is that actually interacting with all the different apps that we are currently using? So a lot of questions and I will of course keep you posted about how things are, what I'm thinking about it as soon as I tried it. But my friends, I hope you enjoyed that episode about the AI pin. Please let me know what you think about this device in the comments or in the little question thingy here that I'm going to integrate.

And besides that, don't forget that I have an amazing AI toolkit for you. It's completely for free. It guides you through the process of getting started with AI. Our link is in the description box, so you can just download it. And yes, thank you so much for listening and hear you in the future.