London-based client tech startup Nothing has raised $200 million and vowed to usher in a brand new era of “AI-native” gadgets working on working programs that “are considerably totally different from those immediately.”
In a press launch that reads half ode to know-how and half manifesto, Nothing founder and CEO Carl Pei stated the money infusion — which values Nothing at $1.3 billion — will assist the corporate ramp up distribution and speed up innovation.
On the coronary heart of Nothing’s plans is AI. Pei stated the corporate is “constructing the foundations for the longer term” on a centered “AI OS” to ship a “hyper-personalized expertise.” Nonetheless, it’s unclear if Nothing’s working system ambitions are constructed on high of Android like Nothing OS. We’ve reached out for clarification.
This “AI-native platform” will run {hardware} in widespread use immediately like smartphones, headphones, and sensible watches, Pei stated, in addition to different gadgets like sensible glasses, electrical autos, and humanoid robots. He confidently predicts Nothing’s new OS will run “no matter comes subsequent,” too. That stated, final October Pei just as confidently proclaimed that “AI is only a instrument” and that the corporate’s OS shouldn’t be described as an AI working system.
Nothing plans to launch its first AI-native gadgets subsequent yr. Its chief problem will likely be producing demand in a class that has traditionally failed to interact the mass market and the place success has eluded even the trade’s greatest gamers like Apple. There’s no scarcity of rivals both, together with the mysterious “screen free” device former Apple designer Jony Ive is creating with OpenAI.
Nothing says it’s uniquely positioned to create these future AI gadgets. “Proudly owning the last-mile distribution level with all its contextual and person data is important to creating an OS that can assist individuals of their every day lives,” stated Pei. “An AI OS that doesn’t know its person and isn’t ever-present can’t ship a hyper-personalised expertise. That is the following chapter for Nothing, integrating an AI expertise into our {hardware} gadgets to reinvent how know-how amplifies us.”