Shoppers looking for gadgets and gizmos powered by generative AI technology to gift to their loved ones won’t have many options to choose from this holiday season.
Generative artificial intelligence has taken Silicon Valley by storm since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot in November 2022. Although startups have raised billions to build new GenAI tools and tech giants have bought millions of Nvidia processors to train AI models, few companies have delivered new hardware built with the new-age tech as its focal point.
There was a lot of optimism over the potential of GenAI gadgets at the CES trade show in January, said Paul Gagnon, vice president for analyst firm Circana. In particular, products from high-profile startups such as Humane and Rabbit, which were marketed as being able to translate, answer questions, take voice memos and set alarms, were drawing buzz, Gagnon said.
But many of these new GenAI devices didn’t work as well as people expected, with reviewers saying that the gadgets were too slow and too prone to failure.
“As we’ve gone through the year, and those kinds of promises — which I’ll be honest, were pretty nebulous to start with — there’s been a bit of a struggle with communicating that to consumers,” Gagnon said.
A key reason GenAI hardware hasn’t had a breakthrough is that current devices are “compute restrained,” meaning they require more powerful silicon chips and related components to perform better, particularly when compared with smartphones, said Ben Bajarin, CEO of Creative Strategies, a market research firm.
Additionally, consumers may find current GenAI devices too expensive, and they may be confused about what the devices can actually do, he said.
GenAI devices, such as the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, also typically require a smartphone connection for an accompanying app as well as strong internet access, because a bad internet connection can lead to performance delays that frustrate people, Bajarin said.
While companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Dell and Lenovo have also heavily marketed new lineups of personal computers capable of performing GenAI tasks, consumers have yet to perk up to the sales pitch, said Ryan Reith, an IDC program vice president for mobile devices.
“I don’t think that there’s actually a need for consumers to go out and get one of these more expensive PCs,” Reith said, noting that people may be confused about why they need beefier computers when they can already access tools such as ChatGPT through their current PCs.
The reality is that while GenAI has captivated Silicon Valley, it’s still “inning zero” in regard to widespread adoption, Bajarin said.
“Even though I can rattle off all these productivity stats of how people are using AI today, it’s a very small number of people,” he said. “This is not mainstream.”
It may not be until 2025 that consumers see a “big explosion” in GenAI computers, smartphones and new gadgets, said Steve Koenig, vice president of research at the Consumer Technology Association, which produces CES.
Despite Silicon Valley not having a breakout year for GenAI hardware, here are a few GenAI devices early adopters can buy.
Ray-Ban Meta glasses
Meta released the second generation of its Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2023, but the company began rolling out GenAI features for the device earlier this year and announced several new AI capabilities at its Connect event in September.
The glasses don’t offer users augmented reality capabilities, but people can use the device to take photos, listen to music and ask the Meta AI digital assistant for information about the things within their field of view.
With the help of the device’s mics and camera, for instance, users can ask the Meta AI digital assistant to recommend a recipe when they walk through a grocery aisle and scan the shelves, the company said in a blog post.
Meta, which makes Facebook and Instagram, is selling certain versions of the glasses for 20% off through Dec. 2. This means that a pair of the Ray-Ban Meta Skyler style of glasses will cost $239.20 instead of $299 if bought online.
Rabbit r1
The Rabbit r1 is a $200 gizmo that looks like an orange, miniaturized tablet with a playful aesthetic that’s more Nintendo Switch than Apple iPad.
Outfitted with a camera and dual mics, the r1 can record audio clips and set timers or perform more advanced tasks, such as helping users recall details from past conversations, search results and voice recordings. After the device began shipping in March, reviewers criticized the r1 for stumbling at various tasks and failing to outshine smartphones that can do many of the same functions.
The startup “has used that feedback to rapidly make very significant improvements to the user experience” and has released scores of updates to improve, Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu told CNBC in a statement.
Despite the harsh reviews, Rabbit has “sold more than 100,000 r1 devices when we originally expected to sell only 3,000” and the company is “seeing a return rate of less than 5%, which is very solid for a first-generation product,” Lyu said.
Rabbit is currently running a deal that gives shoppers free shipping, or $15 off, if they order an r1 by Dec. 4.
Bee
After raising $7 million in funding in July, the startup Bee AI will begin selling its GenAI device, the Bee, on Friday.
The Bee looks like an internet-connected smartwatch and functions like an advanced digital assistant. Its dual mics allow it to listen and analyze people’s voice memos and conversations to provide summaries and to-do lists, Bee AI CEO Maria de Lourdes Zollo told CNBC.
The Bee can also be integrated with health-care tools and people’s Google and Gmail accounts to help generate personalized summaries and action items, Zollo said. Although the startup offers a Bee app for the Apple Watch for people who don’t want to buy another hardware device, she said the core Bee device is better at understanding voices in loud environments.
Shoppers can buy the Bee for $49.99 and get its basic tasks, but they will have to pay a $15-per-month subscription for more features such as “better memory or better capabilities,” Zollo said.
For Black Friday, Bee is offering shoppers three free months of the device’s subscription service. The device should ship in time for Christmas, Zollo said.
Elon Musk listens as reporters ask U.S. President Donald Trump and South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa questions during a press availability in the Oval Office at the White House on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
Tesla shares gained about 5% on Tuesday after CEO Elon Musk over the weekend reiterated his intent to home in on his businesses ahead of the latest SpaceX rocket launch.
The billionaire wrote in a post to his social media platform X that he needs to be “super focused” on X, artificial intelligence company xAI and Tesla as they launch “critical technologies” on the heels of a temporary outage.
“As evidenced by the uptime issues this week, major operational improvements need to be made,” he wrote, adding that he would return to “spending 24/7” at work. “The failover redundancy should have worked, but did not.”
An outage over the weekend briefly shuttered the social media platform formerly known as Twitter for thousands of users, according to DownDetector. Earlier in the week, the platform suffered a data center outage. X has suffered a series of outages since Musk purchased the platform in 2022.
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Musk has previously indicated plans to step away from his political work and prioritize his businesses.
During Tesla’s April earnings call he said that he would “significantly” reduce his time running President Donald Trump‘s Department of Government Efficiency.
In the last election cycle, Musk devoted time and billions of dollars to political causes and toward electing Trump in 2024. However, a story over the weekend from the Washington Post, citing sources familiar with the matter, said that Musk has grown disillusioned with politics and wants to return to managing his businesses.
Last week, Musk said in an interview at the Qatar Economic Forum that he planned to spend “a lot less” on campaign donations going forward.
The comments from Musk precede SpaceX’s Starship rocket Tuesday evening. Pressure is on for the company after two Starship rockets exploded in January and March.
Ahead of the launch, Musk announced an all hands livestream on X at 1 p.m.
Tesla is still facing fallout from Musk’s political foray, with protests at showrooms and other brand damage.
In April, Tesla sold 7,261 cars in Europe, down 49% from last year, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Tuesday that the Trump administration does not want to “harm Apple” with tariffs.
“Everybody is trying to make it seem like it’s a catastrophe if there’s a tiny little tariff on them right now, to try to negotiate down the tariffs,” Hassett told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday. “In the end, we’ll see what happens, we’ll see what the update is, but we don’t want to harm Apple.”
Hassett’s comments come after President Donald Trump said in a social media post that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the U.S. Apple has historically manufactured its products in foreign countries including China, India and Vietnam.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump wrote in the post. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. Thank your for your attention to this matter!”
By some estimates, a U.S.-made iPhone could cost as much as $3,500.
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“If you think that Apple has a factory some place that’s got a set number of iPhones that it produces and it needs to sell them no matter what, then Apple will bear those tariffs, not consumers, because it’s an elastic supply,” Hassett said.
Hasset’s comments continue the administration’s push to pressure companies to shoulder the cost burden of Trump’s tariffs, instead of raising prices for consumers.
Earlier this month, Trump told retail giant Walmart to “EAT THE TARIFFS” after the company warned it would have to pass those added costs on.
Shares of Apple were up more than 1% Tuesday.
Apple did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Dr. Priti Patel, CMIO at John Muir Health, uses Ambience before starting a patient encounter.
Courtesy of Ambience Healthcare
Artificial intelligence startup Ambience Healthcare on Tuesday announced a new medical coding model that outperforms doctors by 27%.
Ambience uses AI to draft clinical notes in real-time as doctors consensually record their visits with patients. The company used tools from OpenAI to build the new model.
The startup is part of a fiercely competitive market that has taken off as health-care executives search for solutions to help reduce staff burnout and daunting administrative workloads.
The company’s new model can listen to patient encounters and identify ICD-10 codes, which are internationally standardized classifications for different diseases and conditions. There are about 70,000 ICD-10 codes that are regularly updated and used to facilitate billing and other reporting processes in health care.
Ambience said its new ICD-10 model can reduce billing mistakes and help clinicians and professional coders work more efficiently. The model notched a “27% relative improvement over physician benchmarks,” according to a release on Tuesday.
“We’re not replacing doctors or coders,” Brendan Fortuner, Ambience’s head of engineering, told CNBC in an interview.“What we’re doing is we’re liberating them from administration, and we’re fixing mistakes that help make health care better, safer, more cost-effective.”
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Documenting ICD-10 codes has traditionally been a labor-intensive task in health care, but it’s a crucial way to track outcomes, mortalities and morbidities in a standardized way, said Dr. Will Morris, the chief medical officer of Ambience.
“If you think about it from a data perspective, it’s how you can compare and contrast clinician A to B, or health system A to B,” Morris said in an interview. “It’s the cornerstone for quality.”
Ambience’s technology is used at more than 40 health-care organizations, like Cleveland Clinic and UCSF Health. It has raised more than $100 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz and the OpenAI Startup Fund.
The company is reportedly seeking fresh capital at a valuation of over $1 billion, according to a report from The Information. Ambience declined to comment on the report.
Ambience trained its new AI model using OpenAI’s reinforcement fine-tuning technology. This technology allows companies to tune OpenAI’s best reasoning models for very specific domains, like health care.
To validate the model, Ambience tested it against a “gold panel” set of labels, the company said. The labels were established by a group of expert clinicians who evaluated complex clinical cases and came to an agreement on what the right codes were.
Ambience’s AI platform for compliant documentation, CDI, and coding.
Courtesy of Ambience Healthcare
The company then recruited 18 different board-certified doctors and compared their performance on ICD-10 coding accuracy to the model’s performance. That comparison showed the Ambience technology performed 27% better than the physician baseline.
“It shows for the first time that an AI system can actually surpass clinician experts at a very, very important administrative task, especially in coding,” Fortuner said.
Ambience already has similar capabilities available for other medical codes like Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes, and Fortuner said it’s exploring how to tackle other areas like prior authorizations, utilization management and clinical trial matching.
The company’s new ICD-10 model will roll out to customers over the summer.
“Getting it right at the point of care is a fundamental change,” Morris said.