As AI tools move into our phones – Apple, Google and Samsung have all launched services that can edit photos, translate languages and carry out web searches – we are at the start of an era in which AI becomes an intrinsic part of our digital lives and increasingly helpful on a personal level.
That’s if we allow it, because it does require a bit of a leap of faith.
Let’s take diary management as an example. An AI tool efficiently can manage your diary for you, if you allow it to access it. But how far should this go?
In order to be truly useful, does that mean it also needs to know who you would rather avoid meeting, or relationships you want to keep secret, and from whom?
Do you want it to provide you with summaries of counselling sessions, or medical appointments?
It’s deeply personal information, and potentially both hugely embarrassing and extremely valuable if some glitch meant it was shared. Do you trust the big tech firms with that kind of data?
Microsoft is pushing hard at this particular door. It got into trouble in 2024 for demoing a tool called Recall, which took snapshots of laptop desktops every few seconds, in order to help users locate content they’d seen but couldn’t remember where.
It has now made a number of changes to the product – which was never launched – but stands by it.
“I think we’re moving to a fundamentally new age where there will be ever present, persistent, very capable co-pilot companions in your everyday life,” the firm’s head of AI, Mustafa Suleyman told me recently.
Despite the challenges, Ben Wood, chief analyst at technology research company CCS Insight, expects that more personalised AI services will emerge in 2025.
“The output will be continuously updated by drawing on evolving data sources, such as emails, messages, documents and social media interactions.
“This will allow the AI service to be tuned specifically to a person’s communication style, needs and preferences,” he says.
But Mr Wood accepts that letting AI loose on your personal information will be a big step.
“Trust will be essential,” says Mr Wood.
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