Smart for Work
Intelligence in Everyday Devices
This is Part B of Field Notes 26W43-EP04. Part A — Make Your Own Skill was about instructions you write down yourself. Part B is about AI that's already been written into the things you carry around.
Think about the devices you use every day — your phone, your camera, your earphones, the appliances at home, even the car. More and more of them come with some AI built in.
I'll stay with categories today, not brands or models. The useful question isn't which gadget wins. It's what this kind of AI is actually good for — and where to be careful. None of this is a reason to be afraid of these features. It's a reason to use them on purpose.
What it does well
Start with the good news. First — speed. When the work happens on the device itself, it's quick, and it often works without a connection. On a plane, in a lift, on a bad signal — it still does the job.
Second — privacy room. If your data stays on the device, that's a real advantage. Though be aware: not everything labelled "smart" actually stays on the device.
And third — accessibility and low friction. Live captions. Describing a scene for someone who can't see it. Small, everyday features that people genuinely end up using. For some people, these features make a device usable at all.
The win is the narrow feature people actually use — not the "AI" sticker on the box.
Where it falls short
Now the honest part — the limits. Battery and heat, for a start. Quality that varies a lot from one feature to the next. And updates that change things without telling you clearly what changed. One week a feature works one way, the next week it doesn't.
A few more to keep in mind. Some "smart" features quietly send things to the cloud. Captions and helpers can struggle in a noisy place. And devices we keep for many years build up an update and security debt.
Three questions before you buy
So before you buy one — or recommend one to a friend — ask three simple questions. Does the core job still work offline? What does it keep about you? And who can switch it off?
No rankings needed. If a device gives you clear answers to those three, you're already in a much better position to use it well — and without worry. Not every feature has to be perfect. It just has to be clear.
If I had to put Part B in one line: embedded AI is at its best as a narrow helper, with a clear way to turn it off — not as a reason to trust every label on the box.
Read Part A — Make Your Own Skill for the other half of this episode. More notes are at kpoleung.com/notes/, the podcast is on Spotify, and comments or topic requests are welcome at m@kpoleung.com.