Huawei may add a digital assistant to its Wi-Fi routers as it looks for a way to enter the market of A.I.-powered smart speakers, an industry which is currently dominated by the likes of Amazon with its Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Show, as well as Google with its Google Home smart speaker. Huawei’s plans to build its own digital assistant into its Wi-Fi routers seems to stem from the goal of striking a balance of hitting target markets while also entering a space which seems to be continually growing. While the U.S. and other Western markets are dominated by Alexa and Google Assistant as the top digital assistant technology, both of which have physical products to make the most use of them, China is likely the prime target for Huawei’s future offering, and its Wi-Fi routers are already available in the region.
Huawei Consumer Business division’s Chief Operating Officer Wan Biao reportedly stated that Huawei will be integrating its digital assistant into its own products. While Huawei hasn’t released anything yet that includes a digital assistant, it was rumored back in February that the Chinese OEM was already working on something to release in the future, and it appears that Huawei’s in-home Wi-Fi routers are going to be the first set of devices to have it incorporated.
Huawei hasn’t made it completely clear what exactly some of the features would be if it integrated a digital assistant into its routers, nor did it mention whether or not this technology would be included in a software update that gets pushed to existing routers or if it would be integrated into new router products that it has yet to launch, but it does mention that it has been considering the use of its own digital assistant for storing data and searching for stuff through voice. That said Huawei hasn’t elaborated on what that would actually entail and how those functions would work. For now consumers in China are left with the possibility that Huawei will bring products to market that include a digital assistant of its own, when these products are released and how much they would cost is unclear.