How Edge AI Brings Artificial Intelligence Closer To Everyday Devices

A diagram showing the differences between Edge AI and Cloud AI.

If you’ve ever faced the struggle of trying to unlock your phone with your face (and it miserably failing) or asked your smartwatch to track your heartbeat, chances are that you’ve been using a powerful technology on a daily basis: Edge AI. Although artificial intelligence is often seen as something that lives within giant data centers or large, unimaginable machines, a new wave of innovation is bringing AI much closer to us. In fact, it lies in even the small items that we use every day. 

What Is Edge AI?

Edge AI is when artificial intelligence is run directly on a device instead of sending data to a remote software in the cloud. Essentially, rather than transmitting data to a cloud server where it’s processed using AI, Edge AI directly processes the data on the device itself, which means no internet connection is required for most tasks. Furthermore, the response is a lot quicker, since the process itself is much more efficient. This name stems from the idea that it rests on the “edge” of networks, which refers to devices such as your phone, smartwatch, or car. 

What Advantages Does Edge AI Offer?

There are three main reasons for why Edge AI is expanding rapidly across thousands of industries: speed, privacy, and offline use. First, since the AI runs directly on your device without having to send data to a remote software to process, it doesn’t need time to process. This, in total, reduces delay, which is also oftentimes referred to as latency. For example, your phone’s facial recognition, although sometimes inaccurate, can detect your face and subsequently unlock your phone almost instantaneously. Second, because data doesn’t need to leave your device to go to a cloud server to process, it offers a much more private alternative. That means your voice recordings, health information, and other confidential information can only be found on your device. This offers numerous security benefits: since many home security systems use artificial intelligence, allowing security information to remain on a single device instead of uploading it to a cloud used by thousands offers a much more secure defense. Lastly, Edge AI allows devices to work even without internet access. For example, voice typing, including Apple’s Siri, can still function!

How Exactly Does Edge AI Work?

Edge AI works through a combination of multi-faceted, complicated software and hardware. First, devices use specialized hardware such as AI accelerators, tensor cores, and AI-specific chips, which are often referred to as Neural Processing Units (NPUs). These chips are highly effective because they are meant to perform machine learning tasks efficiently while using the least amount of power available. 

Then, engineers train AI models on large databases in powerful data centers. Once the AI model is finally trained to be as effective as possible, a smaller version of the model is compressed and installed on the wearable and handheld devices that you use. This process is called model optimization, and it is a key step that ensures fast processing and lower energy and storage space usage. 

Where Is Edge AI Used?

This innovative technology is functional and operable in almost every electronic product that you may use. For example, the most popular one would be modern smartphones. Currently, many modern smartphones use NPUs, which allow phones to automatically detect faces and unlock phones, improve photos, translate languages in real time, and detect spam calls. 

Another technology that currently uses Edge AI, and is probably present within your home, are smart home devices. These devices, including security cameras and smart doorbells, can utilize Edge AI to tell the difference between a person and a pet, recognize familiar faces, and understand simple commands without sending recordings to the cloud. The effectiveness of Edge AI within these technologies is the reason why companies such as Amazon and Google are utilizing it in order to improve their product’s privacy and efficiency. 

Lastly, this technology is probably on your wrist right now. If you look down at your wrist and see a smart watch looking back at you, then you are using a technology that almost certainly uses Edge AI. Devices such as the Apple Watch can monitor heart rate, pick up on irregular heart and sleeping patterns, and detect falls using Edge AI. Most importantly, these actions can be done offline, making Edge AI especially important for those with health issues. 

Potential Challenges

Of course, with every innovative technology, there are always challenges associated with them. First, Edge AI often has limited power in comparison to cloud servers. Because they don’t have as much computing power as cloud servers, developers have to maneuver carefully in order to design models that are small yet accurate. Second, AI processing consumes energy. In smartphones and wearables, this often poses a problem with battery life because constant use of Edge AI can drain battery life quickly, making long-term use hard. Nevertheless, most of these issues can still be rectified with future innovations. Though Edge AI might not be as famous or efficient as cloud computing or large AI chatbots, it is still important. By moving artificial intelligence from distant servers to local devices, companies are creating faster, safer, and more reliable technology. As artificial intelligence shrinks into small devices with each and every innovation, the future is everywhere, from your pocket to your wrist, because of Edge AI.