"Physical AI is most often used to refer to robots, but it increasingly encompasses every category of AI-enabled device that is already in use today – our phones, AI-enabled PCs, smart speakers, fitness trackers, Agentic glasses, and AI-enabled cars – and connects us to a digital assistant, an AI agent, or any kind of AI-enabled feature. But to drive demand at scale, this interconnected ecosystem of devices needs to start solving real problems for real people, or demand may soften.”
High-performance, power-efficient AI-capable silicon will continue to enable increasingly sophisticated AI use cases at the edge, accelerating the expansion of AI workloads into edge form factors such as devices, vehicles, IoT, and other physical AI. These edge AI use cases will increasingly complement cloud-based AI functions in an orchestrated, distributed hierarchy of AI workloads.
While edge AI is not new, 2026 product launches highlight rapid innovation and an expanding variety of AI-capable form factors.
Device and Semiconductor Vendors’ Commitment to Edge AI Expansion: Major silicon and device vendors—from established leaders like Qualcomm, Apple, and NVIDIA to players like Amazon and Google—are aggressively competing to scale edge AI in IoT, automotive, and robotics. In 2026, partnerships across semiconductors, hardware, and AI platforms will be essential to consolidate ecosystems focused on interoperability and performance.
Research Director Olivier Blanchard covers Intelligent Devices for Futurum. In addition to having co-authored several books about digital transformation and AI with Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman, Blanchard brings considerable experience demystifying new and emerging technologies, advising clients on how best to future-proof their organizations, and helping maximize the positive impacts of technology disruption while mitigating their potentially negative effects. Follow his extended analysis on X and LinkedIn.
Good to see that even in an AI-forward industry, having an army of competent human engineers and SMEs on tap remains the killer app.
The cynic will see this as ironic. I choose to see it as ...validation that competent humans > software pretending to be a competent human.
Microsoft is setting up a new organization with 6,000 employees to help businesses with the technical and strategic work of deploying artificial intelligence https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-02/microsoft-mobilizes-6-000-workers-to-help-customers-adopt-ai?taid=6a4663309536b00001bc6785&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_content=business&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
The missing word here is "yet."
But also, the missing word here is "yet."
At what point do those efficiency gains actually start showing up? Because right now, it feels like we've just replaced old ...tasks with new tasks attached to toll booths. I'm annoyed.
This is the key. Factset and anyone else can claim all they want that they have achieved efficiency gains from AI, but if it doesn’t show up in margins, it’s bullshit.
Not super surprising.
And while we aren't talking about 6G and agent-optimized "agentic modems" YET, if Apple aims to keep delivering premium connected experiences in the most thermally efficient ...way, this makes sense, especially in markets where mmWave is a thing.
iPhone 18 Pro Could Use Qualcomm Modem in the US and C2 Elsewhere https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/02/iphone-18-pro-could-use-qualcomm-modem-in-the-us/
Reminder that if you 1) fail to pay attention to check-engine signals when they flash at you, and 2) fail to test those signals against your most deeply held assumptions, you've forgotten how to be a... competent analyst.
This is a good place to practice that exercise today.
🦔Meta employees consumed 73.7 trillion AI tokens in a single month. That costs roughly $221 million a month, or $2.65 billion a year. The median Meta employee makes $388,200. At that rate the token spend alone could pay for about 6,800 engineers for a full year.
My Take
Meta
I wonder how this will affect @MediaTek as @Amazon's biggest chip supplier.
To be clear, the only acceptable number of stock trades made by anyone in the public sector who is a position to influence markets and stock value is ZERO.
This includes judges, legislators, and any ...government official with regulatory, executive or oversight authority.
Donald Trump declared making more than 22,000 stock transactions in 2025, according to the FT analysis. His immediate predecessor, Joe Biden, made 13 transactions over four years. In his first term, Trump made 517. https://ft.trib.al/lE26Tv9
2 of the biggest concerns I have about Meta's agentic glasses:
1) Public pushback against "perv glasses" is gaining momentum. Meta Glasses' privacy & trust problem needs a credible answer.
2) If ...Meta's AI solutions lag, Meta glasses UX will disappoint, and demand will soften.
Meta Platforms $META CEO Mark Zuckerberg just said at an internal town hall meeting that
- AI AGENT DEVELOPMENT OVER THE LAST FOUR MONTHS HASN'T 'ACCELERATED IN THE WAY WE EXPECTED'
Five years ago, most analysts were VERY skeptical about the prospects of @Qualcomm's diversification strategy. Today, while category performance is still a bit asymmetrical, the strategy overall ...continues to prove that @cristianoamon's bet on internal disruption was 100% correct. https://x.com/TheSixFiveMedia/status/2072040371777872291
Speaking of @Qualcomm, here's a recap of their investor day last week (Part 1) that highlights some of the main points to focus on:
Qualcomm’s Investor Day 2026: Agentic and AI Inference To Drive 2x Revenue Growth by 2030
Qualcomm’s strategy to combine its expanding agentic edge ecosystem with its data center inference opportunity could double its revenue by 2030.
futurumgroup.com
Caution: @MediaTek is on quite the momentum train, and things have definitely shifted into a different gear there these past 2 years. Does that make MediaTek a more competitive threat for @Qualcomm? ...Sure. "Leaving Qualcomm in the dust" though? No.
MediaTek is taking share from Broadcom and leaving Qualcomm in the dust
High risk, high reward. I get that. And scale can deflect some market headwinds. But where the check engine lights start flashing for everyone is 1) So much of this is tied to a bet on OpenAI, and 2)... aside from that, does the revenue model math even make ROI sense? So... yeah.
$ORCL just had its worst one-week stock performance in 25 years.
Oracle is borrowing at scale to build AI data centers for a customer base heavily tied to OpenAI and I think the market is starting to price the risk of funding a hyperscale buildout without $MSFT, $GOOGL, $AMZN
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