A year and a half after ChatGPT brought the subject of artificial intelligence to mass public attention, most people would be forgiven for wondering: when is AI going to make a big difference to my life?

That question resonates particularly loudly during Big Tech’s annual developer conference season, which began in the middle of May. This is the moment in the year when the tech companies lay out their stalls and try to wow customers with their vision of the immediate tech future.

The arrival of ChatGPT may have grabbed the popular imagination, but for most people typing questions into a text-based chatbot is of limited interest. Since then, most of the focus in tech circles has been on the race to build the capabilities needed to deliver generative AI on a mass-market scale, rather than its uses. The headlines have been dominated by news of evermore powerful large language models, the splurge of spending on powerful new chips and the proliferation of huge, power-hungry data centres needed to process AI.