Xiaomi brings voice-enabled AI to mobile devices

Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun said in April that the company had set up a “task force” to develop the AI ​​model and had successfully tested it on devices. The AI ​​model will be integrated into the Xiao AI voice assistant on its handsets.

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“Xiaomi is a mobile company, so we mainly focus on deploying large models in a compact way at a smaller scale, which is different from other Internet companies,” Lei said. “The task force’s mission since its establishment has been to compact large language models with tens of billions of parameters.”

The lighter AI model is designed to be smaller, more efficient, and suitable for use on devices like smartphones that have significantly less memory and processing power than computers.

Xiaomi says its AI model has 1.3 billion parameters, but in some cases it can deliver performance comparable to models with up to 6 billion parameters.

In another move, the Chinese phone company also officially launched a folding smartphone, Mix Fold 3, for the high-end product segment.

CEO Lei Jun admitted that Xiaomi’s push into the premium segment has been “a grueling but rewarding challenge over the past decade.” The Xiaomi 10, 11, and 12 models launched between early 2020 and late 2021 had below-average sales, forcing the company to significantly change its business strategy.

“The smartphone industry is fiercely competitive, and only by targeting the high-end market can we drive technological breakthroughs,” Lei said, calling it a “survival” ambition for the company.

In it, the smartphone company's head said that the launch of the Xiaomi 13 late last year was a turning point when the company shifted from prioritizing specifications to focusing on user experience.

However, challenges remain as global demand for consumer electronics slows. Xiaomi remained in third place after Samsung and Apple in the first three months of 2023, but its market share fell from 13% to 11% over the same period, according to data from market research firm Canalys.

By May 2023, Xiaomi's smartphone business revenue fell 23.6% year-on-year, while shipments also fell 21.1%.

However, the company is still doing well at home as the top Android brand, with a 24.1% market share, with 18% year-on-year growth in average price in the Chinese market, especially in the $550 to $685 segment.

According to VOV