AI buttons are being forced into your tech, whether you want it or not

Microsoft

Microsoft

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    </div></figure><p class="imageCredit">Microsoft</p></div>

But as for the generative tools that “AI” refers to, there seem to be two general approaches. Every company is either hitching its wagon to ChatGPT’s star, as Microsoft is doing with its Copilot system, or hoping to be the next one to shine bright, like Google with its Bard Gemini system or Apple with its forthcoming generative AI. 

Technology’s hottest club is ‘AI’

Unlike the crypto boom, generative AI is something that pretty much anyone can use, even if they don’t have to understand it. You can punch a request for, say, a limerick about the new Fallout TV show with just a few keystrokes. It won’t be particularly good, but anyone can see why you’d prefer a computer to do the thinking for you in a few seconds instead of trying to create lines in your slow human meat brain for 10 or 20 minutes. The appeal is undeniable and universal. 

Mark Hachman / IDG

            <div class="lightbox-image-container foundry-lightbox"><div class="extendedBlock-wrapper block-coreImage undefined"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large enlarged-image"><img decoding="async" data-wp-bind--src="selectors.core.image.enlargedImgSrc" data-wp-style--object-fit="selectors.core.image.lightboxObjectFit" src="" alt="Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra Copilot key" class="wp-image-2281711" width="1200" height="924" loading="lazy" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Every new Windows laptop this year will get a Copilot button for going straight to Microsoft&rsquo;s ChatGPT interface.</figcaption></figure><p class="imageCredit">Mark Hachman / IDG</p></div>

    </div></figure><p class="imageCredit">Mark Hachman / IDG</p></div>

Perhaps that’s why these companies are so desperate to put AI front-and-center in their interfaces, both physical and digital. Microsoft is making all new Windows laptops come with a dedicated Copilot key, literally forcing users to interact with its ChatGPT interface in an even more immediate way than sticking it on the taskbar. Google is replacing Assistant, one of Android’s most long-running and distinctive features, with Gemini, to mixed results. 

There’s a growing niche of products that are all AI, all the time, like the Humane Ai Pin that’s been taking an absolute beating in its initial reviews. We’ll see if the AI-powered baby cry translator can do better when it launches, to say nothing of the AI-powered Samsung refrigerator. 

Humane

            <div class="lightbox-image-container foundry-lightbox"><div class="extendedBlock-wrapper block-coreImage undefined"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large enlarged-image"><img decoding="async" data-wp-bind--src="selectors.core.image.enlargedImgSrc" data-wp-style--object-fit="selectors.core.image.lightboxObjectFit" src="" alt="Humane AI Pin" class="wp-image-2135763" width="1200" height="675" loading="lazy" /></figure><p class="imageCredit">Humane</p></div>

    </div></figure><p class="imageCredit">Humane</p></div>

AI buttons are everywhere

Even Logitech, an accessory vendor that doesn’t seem like it would have much to gain from this particular trend, is hopping on. The company’s new Signature AI Edition M750 Mouse comes with a dedicated button to summon yet another flavor of ChatGPT, focused on helping you write with short generative tasks. 

It’s basically the same idea as Copilot’s most simple functions, now built into Logi Options+. That means that the same capability will come to most of Logitech’s mice and keyboards, assuming you bothered to install the management app for them. Expect that dedicated AI button to show up on other Logitech products, like the next revision of the MX Master mouse. Hell, the button might just be the justification Logitech needs to release a new MX Master mouse in the first place.