AWE 2025 Observation: Will the Home Appliance Industry Experience a Cross-Industry Wave After AI Transformation?

At the end of January 2025, Deepseek emerged and quickly dominated social media, stealing the spotlight during the Spring Festival. It became a hot topic in the tech and internet circles, and in the days to come, it began to infiltrate various industries.

Among them, the home appliance industry has been particularly proactive toward Deepseek. People are curious whether, with the empowerment of large AI models, the traditional home appliance industry will make a true "leap" towards smart technology. With this expectation, the China Household Appliances and Consumer Electronics Expo (AWE), a barometer for the industry, kicked off in mid-March with the theme "AI Technology, AI Life." Over 150,000 square meters of exhibition space hosted domestic and international appliance giants, all eager to showcase their latest innovations, signaling that in the age of AI, they remain at the forefront of the wave.

However, behind the prosperity, there are still many questions to be answered—Is AI just a gimmick or a revolution? Do all home appliances deserve to be integrated with large AI models? What is the fundamental difference between smart appliances and AI-powered appliances? Through our visit to AWE 2025, we can tentatively conclude that, much like a torchlight, the large AI model certainly excites people, but the road ahead remains shrouded in fog. Companies still need to continuously attempt breakthroughs in different directions.

The Evolution of Home Appliances In 1950, American writer Ray Bradbury published a short science fiction story, August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains, in which he writes: When the clock strikes 9:55, it's time for cleaning. At that moment, mechanical mice made of rubber and metal quickly scurry out of the walls, covering the entire house. They crash into chairs, rotate their whiskers, roll up carpet fibers, and suck up dust particles hiding in the corners. Finally, they return to their nests, like unfathomable invaders, closing their pink electronic eyes, and the house is left spotless.

Modern people pursue efficiency and convenience, and with the rapid development of technology, smart home appliances are now ubiquitous in the market. The fantasies of the last century have now become ordinary reality, and the performance of robotic vacuums has far surpassed the depictions in science fiction novels. Especially at the AWE exhibition, you could see brands like Dreame, Ecovacs, and Roborock showcasing their robotic vacuums, competing with the latest technologies. Compared to previous years, the highlight of these brands' products has shifted from abstract parameter comparisons to the experiential upgrades brought by large AI models.

This sets the tone for AWE 2025, where various products are making "intelligence" more perceptible.

Take the electric shaver as an example. This product, which was born in the early 20th century, has developed for over a hundred years. In 2022, a third-party industry report analyzed that "the upgrade of electric shavers is slow... the entry barrier is low, and the industry chain is relatively mature... consumer demand mainly comes from the need to replace old shavers." In this environment, relevant companies have focused their survival strategies more on operations, design, and marketing, and technological upgrades, even if they exist, are difficult to showcase.

How to make technology visible has become an indicator of brand strength. The U1 electric shaver displayed at the Flyco booth is a product that makes technological upgrades "visible." In addition to its split design, it uses a dual-motor direct-drive system to restructure the motor design, allowing the blade to reach a high frequency of around 4,000 revolutions per minute. Flyco has also introduced "touch-sensitive activation" technology— the machine's start and stop change as the blade touches the skin. According to the staff, this not only prevents accidental activation but also enhances safety.

Similarly, with a focus on AI concepts, if at AWE 2024, brands like Samsung and Hisense emphasized improving the performance of TVs, such as picture quality and energy efficiency, then at AWE 2025, AI for TVs adds more of a "content assistant" flavor.

For example, Hisense has integrated Deepseek into its built-in operating system and equipped it with dedicated AI models for different scenarios like movies, sports, animation, and fitness. When users are watching a movie and want to know about the actors or the plot, they can press the AI button, and the system will search for related content online based on the real-time footage. "We also have our own database," a staff member revealed. "For example, for animated shows, we need to obtain authorization from the copyright holder before we can commercially replicate characters."

Traditionally, TVs only served as "players," with technology typically iterating around "clearer, more vibrant, and better sound." However, AI large models have broken this limitation, allowing TVs to shift from being mere "players" to becoming "statisticians." The value of companies now lies not just in selling hardware but in the content and behavioral data they accumulate.

The company that understands consumers more deeply and comprehensively will have a more stable position in the consumer market.

Different AI Explorations This is also evident in the kitchen appliance sector.

For Chinese people, food is very important. Words like “hot pot,” “pan-frying,” “steaming,” “boiling,” “blanching,” “stewing”... many Chinese characters are used to describe cooking methods. Even in today’s fast-paced world, making a good meal is not easy. You first have to shuttle through markets and supermarkets to buy ingredients, carefully select based on freshness, quality, and personal preference. Then, you need to wash the ingredients, chop vegetables, light the stove, and season them... A meal takes a lot of time and effort.

Food is not just a commodity; it is a domain that involves everything. In addition to agriculture, industry, transportation, and services, it also contains aspects of the environment, culture, society, and other humanistic fields. Now, AI large models are also involved.

Although there is no unified understanding or standard in the industry for AI kitchen appliances, this does not stop brands from showcasing at AWE 2025 how AI is transforming "cooking" — integrating food culture and health management, breaking down and simplifying complex processes, and positioning themselves as “content providers.”

It can recognize complex commands, recommend personalized recipes, provide cooking guidance, and even generate customized healthy meal plans by analyzing users' facial health indicators and medical reports. The development of the “Food God Large Model” combines a 2TB public and private knowledge base with 46 years of cooking expertise accumulated by Robam Appliances in the culinary vertical.

“If we use a gaming analogy, we've equipped users with a local save file,” Zhou Haixin told 36Kr. “It remembers your interactions and dietary preferences. At first, it might recommend generic recipes, but over time, it will understand you better. For example, if you like sweet tomato scrambled eggs, it will suggest dishes from southern Chinese cuisine.”

Also built on an AI large model, wan AIChef has taken a more aggressive approach — aiming to solve most household dietary needs with a single intelligent cooking unit. To prove this, Wang Ning, Director of Brand Operations, showcased dishes like steak and eel prepared by the machine. Some tasters even commented, “It’s hard to tell the difference between machine-made and human-made.”

Through conversations, 36Kr found that wan AIChef‘s key focus is on “simplifying the food preparation process” — breaking it down into four scenarios: health check, meal recommendation, ingredient delivery, and smart cooking. Their proprietary “Zhurong Large Model” connects these steps, allowing a single device to handle health management, recipe planning, ingredient purchasing, and cooking. “We aim to build a traceable farm-to-table food supply chain that ensures food safety while meeting personalized dietary needs — and in turn, driving innovation across the industry,” Wang Ning explained.

It’s also worth noting that by leveraging cameras and sensors, along with 4D ultra-sensitive temperature control technology, wan AIChef has achieved independent temperature regulation across different internal cooking zones — ensuring that each ingredient is cooked at the optimal temperature.

When asked whether AI kitchen appliances will require yearly hardware upgrades like computers or smartphones, a staff member explained: “Our current wan AIChef product already covers most household cooking scenarios, and since the nature of cooking itself doesn’t change drastically, future updates will focus more on software, models, and content rather than hardware.”

At the AWE N1 exhibition hall, Fotile has already made initial strides in applying “embodied intelligence” to kitchen appliances. Much like how a human infant learns to walk by falling, embodied intelligence follows a similar logic — allowing AI to interact with its environment through a physical form, learning from each experience, and building a database to perform both simple and complex tasks.

Fotile’s ACS 2.0 panoramic automatic cooking system, integrated with Deepseek, features a 3D omnidirectional perception robotic arm capable of sensing its environment in real-time. Under AI command, it can autonomously coordinate with kitchen appliances to tackle "no-chef cooking," executing tasks like open-flame cooking and even cleaning up the stovetop.

For those who enjoy the cooking process, Fotile’s products, equipped with various sensors and their “neural hub” AI Genie, allow users to monitor real-time cooking progress while receiving instant voice-guided instructions from the AI. “Cooking steps can be quite complicated — sometimes the number of stir-frying actions or the oil temperature makes a big difference to the final dish,” a staff member explained. “Our products can analyze video in real time to solve these issues. Even beginner users want to feel a sense of achievement from cooking.”

In fact, there’s been a lot of debate around whether AI large models are really necessary for home appliances. Many argue that some product categories are simply riding the AI hype — their usage scenarios are straightforward and don’t require complex processing, making the integration of large models seem excessive. However, the AWE exhibition floor makes one thing clear: in the realm of kitchen appliances at least, AI large models are opening up new possibilities for home cooking.

Is data becoming the core competitive edge for appliance brands?

Now that AI is no longer out of reach and companies are rushing into the AI race, how can a brand truly stand out in a market where all players seem to offer similar technologies?

The answer may lie in “customer acquisition capability” — using AI to deeply connect with more consumers.

In the past, the number of physical stores determined a brand’s attractiveness: the more stores, the easier it was for consumers to access products. In the Internet era, content platforms became more crucial entry points for traffic. Platforms like Meta and TikTok drew users with massive amounts of UGC content, eventually expanding into e-commerce and reshaping the retail landscape. In the AI era, content is no longer scarce. High-quality, personalized content and a deeper understanding of users have become the new goals — which depend heavily on data collection, organization, and advanced AI fine-tuning.

Beyond consumer-facing brands, AWE also featured AI technology providers. One of them was Agora, a company specializing in RTC/RTE (Real-Time Communication/Real-Time Engagement) technologies. At their booth, they showcased a conversational AI development kit designed to help developers quickly deploy real-time voice-interactive AI across use cases like virtual companionship, spoken English practice, smart customer service, and intelligent hardware. “Unlike traditional AI, our product is highly responsive — you can interrupt at any time, and it will respond just like a real person.”

As a partner to major players like Xiaomi and Huawei and a key provider of audio-video data entry points, Agora shared its perspective on the future of AI-powered home appliances: “To build an ideal AI ecosystem for smart appliances, many challenges still need to be overcome. For instance, most households have devices from different brands, and creating a unified control platform requires a powerful, reputable organization to take the lead. At the same time, consensus must be reached on the ownership of data sources.”

For the home appliance industry, it will become increasingly important to not only manufacture devices but also operate, co-develop ecosystems, and deliver emotionally resonant content and services. In the future, consumers may not be choosing a single product, but rather an entire after-sales and service ecosystem.

On another note, the “chemical reaction” sparked by AI may also begin to blur the boundaries between industries — TV brands transforming into streaming services like Netflix, electric shaver brands entering men’s skincare, kitchen appliance companies challenging local lifestyle giants… Because appliances are deeply embedded in daily life, and AI enables them to tap into millions of households’ data, they can understand and match people with products across a wide range of consumption scenarios.

Of course, this is still speculative. Many years from now, AI home appliances may look completely different. But that’s not the point. Much like the smartphone revolution a decade ago, every disruptive innovation starts with skepticism and misunderstanding. And yet, it’s precisely these early attempts that drive the next industry boom.

AWE 2025 is not the answer — it’s the gateway.