In just a few months, ChatGPT has changed from a star product supported by everyone to an "unknown technological hazard" resisted by the big guys.
Recently, an open letter calling for the suspension of training AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 was received by "artificial intelligence godfather" Jeffrey Hinton, Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, and Turing Award winner about The support of Shuya Bengio and other thousands of scientific and technological people has caused a thousand waves with one stone.
Although the outside world has mixed opinions on ChatGPT, the domestic "fusion experiment" on ChatGPT and educational hardware has not stopped. In the education industry, a number of education companies have disclosed related products and technology layouts. Two companies, HKUST Xunfei and Netease Youdao, plan to launch new smart education hardware products to actively seize this technology outlet.
The birth of ChatGPT has stirred up the situation in the education industry, and will also bring new development opportunities to the education intelligent hardware industry.
New technology blows the horn of revolution
The development of artificial intelligence technology and the increase of application scenarios have made the market size of educational intelligent hardware continue to expand. According to the "2022 China Educational Smart Hardware Market and User Insight Report" released by iResearch, the market size of consumer-grade educational smart hardware is expected to reach 43.1 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of over 20%. It is expected that the growth rate will maintain in the next four years. double digits.
However, the evaluation of educational hardware products on the market is not all "A+", and the educational hardware industry is far from reaching people's ideal state. Firstly, the products are relatively homogeneous, which makes it difficult to meet the individual needs of different students; secondly, the quality of products is uneven, and there is no unified standard for pricing, so the quality cannot be guaranteed; thirdly, the "intelligence" of smart hardware products The level is not high and the interaction is weak.
Lack of intelligent product innovation is a problem that educational hardware companies need to solve at present, and technological upgrading and innovation have become a breakthrough for educational hardware companies. Coinciding with the rapid development of the latest AI technology represented by ChatGPT, educational hardware companies will focus on ChatGPT.
As a text chat product based on a large language model, ChatGPT has been fully recognized by users for its smart chat and smart writing functions. It is understood that ChatGPT has been online for two months and has more than 100 million monthly active users, making it the fastest growing application in the history of the Internet.
Therefore, more people believe that the new technology represented by ChatGPT can change the status quo of the educational intelligent hardware industry and promote better and faster development of the industry.
For students, compared with traditional smart hardware products, ChatGPT has stronger comprehension, learning ability and interactivity, and the use effect is better. Traditional learning hardware only provides answers and guidance, lacks in-depth analysis and guidance, and has the same functions. ChatGPT can analyze and track data such as students' learning habits, learning styles, and learning progress, and provide corresponding personalized learning guidance.
For teachers, ChatGPT is more flexible and adaptable than traditional intelligent teaching tools. It can assist teachers to teach students in accordance with their aptitude and improve their work efficiency. For example, ChatGPT can provide more resources for teachers to prepare lessons and help teachers enrich teaching content. It can also automatically perform repetitive tasks such as assigning homework, explaining test rules, and correcting homework, saving teachers time.
In any case, developing domestic ChatGPT as soon as possible, learning how to use ChatGPT to work and study better, and integrating ChatGPT into educational smart hardware products is an urgent task for every educational smart hardware company.
HKUST Xunfei "Technology First"
As a technology company that started with artificial intelligence, iFLYTEK has deployed multiple intelligent business lines such as robots, smart education, connected medical care, smart cities, and unmanned driving, covering the B-end, G-end, and C-end markets. The plate is getting bigger and bigger, but the revenue and net profit have not increased as expected.
HKUST Xunfei’s 2022 annual performance announcement is expected to achieve operating income of 18.314 billion-20.145 billion yuan, an increase of 0%-10% over the same period of the previous year; estimated gross profit of 7.533 billion-8.287 billion yuan, an increase of 0%-10% over the same period of the previous year . It is estimated that the net profit in 2022 will be 467 million to 623 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 60% to 70%.
The reason for the slowdown in revenue growth and the sharp decline in net profit, iFlytek explained: "The performance growth did not meet expectations mainly due to the continuous impact of the new crown epidemic on the company's operations, and delays in project bidding across the country, especially in the fourth quarter. More than 20 projects and more than 3 billion yuan of contract extensions."
Or maybe it’s hard to tell the story of the “leader of intelligent voice technology”. Just as the emergence of ChatGPT set off an upsurge in artificial intelligence, HKUST Xunfei resolutely proposed the small goal of deploying ChatGPT.
On February 16, HKUST Xunfei’s high-profile Xuancheng will release the product-level application of the generative pre-training large model - HKUST Xunfei AI Learning Machine, Xunfei Hearing and other products will be the first products of this technology to be implemented. Product-level release on May 6. There is an exact product line and a clear time point, which shows that HKUST Xunfei is very confident in the layout of ChatGPT.
From the point of view, the revenue of smart education business accounts for the majority of iFLYTEK’s overall revenue. If the learning machine equipped with ChatGPT technology can become a hit, then the popularity and sales of iFLYTEK’s educational products will also be high. In the field of educational smart hardware The position will be more secure, and its commercial moat will be wider and deeper.
According to the official data of HKUST Xunfei, Xunfei’s smart hardware products are currently mainly based on office and learning scene products. Among them, the revenue of Xunfei Learning Machine will increase by 53% year-on-year in 2022, and it is expected to grow faster in 2023. Among the products in the office scene, smart office notebooks will have the largest online and offline market share in 2022, with a monthly increase of 78%.
In terms of technical background, iFlytek has long been committed to the research and development of artificial intelligence technology, and has certain advantages in data accumulation and computing power. In particular, it has a number of core technologies in the field of intelligent voice, which has laid a solid foundation for the construction of its large model training platform. A good technical cornerstone is a strong contender for "ChatGPT localization".
HKUST Xunfei officially stated that ChatGPT mainly involves natural language processing related technologies, which is one of the applications in the field of cognitive intelligence. The company has long-term and profound accumulation in technology and applications in this direction. It is understood that iFLYTEK has accumulated more than 50TB of industry corpus and active applications with more than 1 billion user interactions per day during years of accumulation and research and development.
At present, the new product of HKUST Xunfei has not yet been launched, and its function and use effect are still unknown. However, it is foreseeable that if HKUST Xunfei develops domestic ChatGPT, it will open up a new route of intelligent educational hardware and accelerate the innovation of educational intelligent hardware products. And progress, its corporate value will also rise.
Netease Youdao "ecological first"
Like iFLYTEK, NetEase Youdao quickly followed up the wave of ChatGPT localization.
Recently, NetEase Youdao announced that it will launch a self-developed ChatGPT-like model "Ziyue" in educational scenarios. The AI oral teacher and Chinese composition correction DEMO based on "Ziyue" has been completed. This will also be the first "ChatGPT-like" model launched by a domestic company in an educational scenario.
Prior to this, NetEase Youdao attached great importance to the smart hardware business. Based on its advantages in hardware, AI algorithms, and content, it created a diversified smart hardware matrix such as Dictionary Pen, Tinglibao, Learning Machine, and Translator. It has soared all the way and has become a strong growth point of NetEase Youdao.
Financial report data show that in fiscal year 2022, of NetEase Youdao’s operating income of 5.01 billion yuan, 3.08 billion yuan came from learning services, a year-on-year increase of 26.3%; smart hardware revenue was 1.26 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.2%; online marketing service net income was 6.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13.2%. Among them, the growth rate of the intelligent hardware segment is higher than that of other business segments.
The purpose of Netease Youdao’s plan to launch the ChatGPT-like model is also obvious. In order to further consolidate the competitiveness of smart hardware products and expand the commercialization space of smart hardware business, but can it achieve its wish? Still need time to verify.
First of all, Netease Youdao has laid out the intelligent learning track for many years, and has accumulated a certain amount of computer vision, intelligent voice AI technology, etc., so it can quickly respond and make layouts in the face of new technologies (ChatGPT). However, people have been discussing the topic of "Can Ziyue understand, analyze questions and give answers like a real teacher?", and the market has doubts about NetEase Youdao technology.
Secondly, the layout of ChatGPT is both an opportunity and a challenge. The advantage of NetEase Youdao's layout of the education smart hardware track lies in the massive teaching content and user data, as well as the one-stop service of "software + hardware + service" formed later, that is, a strong education industry ecology. This attempt to apply new technologies may further increase product value, and may also affect the original product reputation, which is both an opportunity and a challenge.
In addition, the market competition is becoming more and more fierce, and NetEase Youdao's education ecology is under pressure everywhere. The entry of ByteDance, Tencent, Baidu, Ali and other Internet companies has intensified the competition in the education smart hardware market. Old rivals iFLYTEK, TAL, and New Oriental continue to increase their education hardware business, bringing certain competitive pressure to the development of Netease Youdao .
It is worth mentioning that Netease Youdao took the lead in making a layout at the "content" level. It has launched a series of self-developed AI courses - artificial intelligence painting and design, ChatGPT from entry to mastery. These two AI-related courses have been launched in Netease Cloud Classroom, pointing to the "ChatGPT ecology".
In addition, in order to strengthen its strength in the ChatGPT ecosystem, NetEase Youdao has invested more funds in research and development. Financial report data shows that NetEase Youdao’s research and development expenses in 2022 have reached 800 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.3%. This increase is mainly due to the increase in investment in business research and development including smart hardware.
It can be found that Netease Youdao is trying to comprehensively promote content, products, and technology, and lay out the "ChatGPT ecology". Different genes have different paths. HKUST Xunfei’s “severe technology” and Netease Youdao’s “surrounding products, content, and technology” are related to the conventional strategic layout of their respective companies. Different operational options will lead to different results at the new node of the competition. result.
The competition enters a new node
The upgrade and iteration of AI technology has given educational smart hardware companies opportunities for high growth. Netease Youdao, HKUST Xunfei and other educational smart hardware players are starting to deploy "domestic ChatGPT". While focusing on researching new technologies, optimizing products, and enriching content, the competition for educational smart hardware will also enter a new node.
1. Product competition
ChatGPT new technology will promote the overall innovation of smart products and bring a lot of imagination to educational hardware products. Under the double reduction policy, the demand for smart education hardware is strong. However, the current educational smart hardware products are "pseudo-intelligent" and "chicken ribs". Technology may change this status quo.
2. Technology battle
Technology is the primary productive force, and the domestic ChatGPT competition will promote the development of the education industry. Major Internet companies have deployed "ChatGPT localization" one after another, trying to implement ChatGPT technology in education, medical care, entertainment and other industries, and the fierce game between giants may promote the development of all walks of life, and the smart education hardware industry is no exception.
3. Content service competition
The essence of the education industry is still dominated by content and services, which are the "source of life" for educational smart hardware. When educational intelligent hardware products explode in a blowout fashion, there will inevitably be a phenomenon of homogeneity in technology and products. At that time, whoever has better content and services and can meet the needs of users will be able to obtain more market growth.
It should be noted that there are some voices of opposition to the introduction of ChatGPT into the education industry. Some students use ChatGPT to write papers, edit manuscripts, and write homework, and learn "assistants" to become "gunners". , It is a big test for education enterprises.
All in all, under the trend of ChatGPT, the competition for educational smart hardware has reached a critical point. When domestic ChatGPT-like products are truly launched, the educational smart hardware market will enter a new round of intense competition. Netease Youdao, HKUST Xunfei and other promoters of educational smart hardware upgrades will also achieve substantial growth.