Perhaps the most visible impact of the AI industry right now is that consumer electronics are becoming more expensive. Price increases are happening left and right, and while smartphones have been mostly spared so far, that no longer seems sustainable, and AI can be blamed for that.
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Watching technology prices this year has been a game of when, not if. Virtually every major product has seen some form of price increase, and this week two big brands fell under the pressure of rising costs.
Microsoft still issued other Xbox price increase, but the biggest domino was Apple, which announced radical price increases on basically its entire catalog except iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch: give it time. As 9to5Mac In detail, these are not small price increases either, with Apple adding hundreds of dollars to existing prices for many products, including its MacBook line.
It’s a significant turning point, as Apple was one of the biggest holdouts when it came to price increases. Motorola, Samsung, Lenovo, Sony and many other big tech brands announced their first waves of price increases months ago, but Apple resisted.
Google is the only notable obstacle left, but it now seems inevitable, almost imminent, that the Pixel will be affected in one way or another.
And it’s all these big tech brands that are ultimately to blame.
Engadget put it betterBelieve. “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.”
Microsoft announced the Xbox price increase, but failed to acknowledge that the company itself, along with all the other major AI players, is the main culprit. The sharp increase in demand for memory and storage that comes with the rise of AI products and services is directly responsible for why your favorite technology is becoming more expensive.
Another opinion that has been floating around in all of this is: can these companies survive this backlash? Data centers and their impact on local water and electricity have already generated a lot reaction from the public. Raise the price of a new console? Your new phone? This is how you do it In fact staff.
Microsoft itself recognize That this problem is not going to go away, it is just going to get worse. a lot worse over the next year or two.
We hoped another price increase would not be necessary and have spent the last few months working with suppliers to find options. Unfortunately, console storage and memory prices have increased more than 2.5 times and we expect them to double again by fall 2027. The entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current component crisis…
It just doesn’t seem sustainable, especially for the products that will be launched in the coming months. Galaxy Z Fold 8, Pixel 11, iPhone 18, etc. are all very It’s likely to get a lot more expensive, and not because of any drastic upgrades.
It is also a vicious circle. Google, for example, is building all around AI, including its hardware, and yet the impacts of memory shortages will inevitably have an impact on the price of the Pixel 11. Everyone’s desire to create AI products requires AI to improve, which requires more resources, which ends up putting those same products out of reach by dramatically increasing prices.
And yet, the AI train continues to move forward.
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