Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

Today I saw another piece of news about Letv. Of course, it's still not good news.

On June 12, Leeco said it had received an application from Rongchuang and Tianjin Jiarui to return 3.2 billion yuan for arbitration. Many analysts believe that this is a sign that Rongchuang has further abandoned Letv.

From the shock when Letv exploded at that time to today, it is estimated that everyone has become accustomed to the negative news of Leeco. There are indeed too many feelings about Letv, and there is nothing new here.

But seeing today's news reminds me of another thing: today, every Internet giant is talking about AI and the industrial Internet. However, most people may have forgotten, in fact, Letv mentioned AI a long time ago, and also did a lot of work. However, AI did not become a lifesaver for Letv from beginning to end, and even did not hear the slightest sound of fragmentation in the collapse of "ecological opposition".

Letv's AI seems to have never existed.

What on earth caused Letv to fall down at the time of the outbreak of AI, but could not save himself with AI? Where did the AI technology, products and ecology accumulated by Letv before the thunderstorm finally go?

It is interesting to stand in the ruins and re-examine a company's choice in the face of AI.

In fact, many "the first AI in the world." It was all called out by Letv

Back to the fall of 2016.

At that time, the illustrious declaration of "free hardware" had only been put forward for half a year; the car built by Letv had already been able to open the press conference, and "suffocating for dreams" was still a good word.

I still remember that when I interviewed Letv's staff at that time, everyone could talk eloquently about Letv's seven sub-ecology, but no one could give an accurate answer to how many "sub-ecology" there were under the sub-ecology. At that time, some people told me that it was 31, some people said that it was 33, and even more outrageously, it was 45.

At that time, Letv, who was busy with ecological reaction, had already started AI, and his first goals were EUI system and LeEco mobile phone. In fact, Letv, who joined the topic of AI at that time, can only say that it is neither too late nor too early. At that time, AlphaGo had already defeated Lee se-dol, and AI was hot enough. But in a few months, many companies have not yet figured out exactly how AI joined their own business, but Letv has already started to act.

In September 2016, Letv announced that EUI had become "the world's first artificial intelligence operating system". This art of speech is unusual today, but compared with a large number of other words of Letv at that time, it can only be said to be ordinary. Letv, who was in the limelight at that time, opened a shocking Bigbang in the United States. Jia Yueting even named the future mobile phone LeAI on Weibo.

The Weibo post read: "I hope LeEco's ecological innovation model can explore a way for the next round of growth of the world economy. I look forward to the launch of the world's first LeEco artificial Intelligence (LeAI) eco-phone as soon as possible. See you soon!"

Yes, Letv was about to make "the world's first AI mobile phone" at that time, and he did do it later. It was Le Pro3 released in April 2017, but at that time Letv's capital chain had been broken and Fuchuang entered the market. The "world's first AI", which has been called for for a long time, is just an online launch that is shabby to the extreme.

In fact, in addition to UI and mobile phones, Letv has also added AI elements to many businesses. For example, Letv Yun, Letv TV, Letv car, and even many "sub-ecology" applications.

What they have in common, however, is that they are quickly forgotten.

From software to hardware, AI can't cook Letv's food.

Friends who don't know anything about that manic years may wonder, since there are so many "first in the world", is it Letv or AI? From today's point of view, most of the pots may have to be carried by Letv himself.

The first reason for this is that Letv's so-called "the world's first AI" is basically unconvincing. For example, the AI capability added to EUI is actually an intelligent recommendation in the UI layer. Its capabilities include making appointments for videos, calendar reminders, and so on. For example, if you book a TV series with a star on Letv, the calendar will intelligently remind you that one day the surroundings of the star will be online at Letv Mall-yes, what this so-called AI can do is to let users click on other Letv APP and web pages relatively easily-this is called by Letv to let ecology take the initiative to find users.

Such a simple ability has been described by Letv as "the nerve center of the world's first artificial intelligence phone" at the public relations level. The whole thing is really very Letv style.

By 2017, Letv's belated AI mobile phone still maintained this style. Le Pro3 double photo AI version, the main ability is the voice assistant "Lele", and the other is Letv self-learning AI ecosystem, through cross-terminal data, geographic information, time schedule and other information to provide users with AI ecological experience.

Yes, it is still based on user data to recommend other Letv ecology. On the other hand, its voice assistant has no praiseworthy software progress compared with competitive mobile phones at that time. And even the intelligent recommendation at the UI level, Meizu, Glory and other mobile phones have already made a lot of attempts, and its system is far more complex than Letv's.

If Lao Luo and Hammer redefined "redefinition", then Boss Jia and Letv in those two years were very fond of redefining "the first in the world". Of course, there is a factor of corporate culture behind this, but the underlying reason is that Letv, who is expanding too fast, lacks the ability to innovate at the hardware level.

The basic reason why there is no AI without a mobile phone is that Apple, Qualcomm and Huawei have all introduced AI computing power starting from the chip layer. In turn, all kinds of mobile phones begin to face the AI innovation of the combination of software and hardware.

At that time, Letv insisted on "free hardware", which made its hardware always in a highly subsidized, cost-effective mode, focusing on selling members. In this case, if the supply chain is also squeezed to take risks together, it is possible to make low-cost hardware that meets industry standards. But it's really hard to lead innovation in technology like AI.

Improper AI hardware is only a microcosm of Letv sacrificing technical depth in horse racing enclosure mode. Its large-scale investment of VR equipment, wearable equipment did not come out, there are the same reasons.

Of course, Letv's capital chain is the mother of all technical problems.

Letv Yun who missed the period of AI

When you talk about Letv with some friends with technical background, you will generally feel sorry for Letv because of its video cloud and live broadcast technology.

Perhaps until now, many fans remember that Letv was the leader of high-definition live sports matches at that time. Today, fans and friends would like to thank Letv for this.

However, few people may remember that there is actually a "cloud ecology" in Letv's seven big sub-ecosystems. At that time, it was said that Letv's content was an engine and making a car was a dream. This makes many people overlook the fact that the speed of Leeco's development is obviously lagging behind.

Today, the public cloud industry is generally transforming to industrial services and AI. However, there is a preparatory period for this transformation. If you compare the cloud business of BAT, you will find that the pace is to prepare for the industry from 2015 to 2016 to welcome the outbreak of AI in early 2017, and enter the new track of industrial Internet and industrial AI in 2018.

However, during the critical period of 2015 and 2016, Letv Yun was not ready for "multi-industry services" and still focused on providing video support services for Leeco. If you compare with other Internet giants, you will find that iqiyi is based on Baidu Cloud and Youku based on Aliyun. But Letv at that time already huge ecology, but did not link the cloud and other business, carry on the platform, Letv cloud still concentrates for the video website service.

Of course, objectively speaking, this is because Letv does not have other killer applications in the Internet industry and cannot form a hotbed of cloud services such as e-commerce, games and social networking. At the same time, the far-fetched relationship between Letv's ecology and the headquarters' emphasis on commercialization while neglecting the strategy of technology connection have led to the limited motivation for Letv's self-growth.

And the cloud happens to be a prerequisite for exporting AI business, from this point of view, Letv has not yet started to lose the qualification to move towards industrial AI.

Today, Letv Cloud, like all cloud vendors, has launched the AI solution. However, the cases and technologies it can give are very limited, and the official website only describes the application scenarios such as AI case solving and writing robot. Compared with other Internet + cloud service vendors who often have hundreds of AI capabilities and a large number of cases, it feels close to shutdown.

It seems that in Letv's opinion, AI is equal to advertising recommendation.

If you dig deeper, I suspect that within Letv at that time, there was a kind of cognition that AI was completely equal to advertising recommendation.

For example, Letv has actually promoted several AI services for the B-end market. At the end of 2016, Letv, who was already thunderstorm, released five pieces of hardware at a press conference suspected of reverence, as well as an AI intelligent algorithm platform called "Star watching".

What is the role of this AI platform? it can help advertisers accurately locate user habits. When the users of Letv TV are satisfied with the viewing behavior to a certain extent, they push advertisements precisely for them at the TV terminal.

Not to mention being monitored by advertisers while watching TV is quite awkward in itself. Star watching system, as Letv's "AI technology masterpiece", is still the same as its earlier Ark advertising system, and even the system intelligence in EUI, adhering to the Letv characteristics of "no AI without advertising".

Looking at all the AI products and AI systems mentioned by Letv, we will find that each one points to pushing ads for Letv and helping advertisers push ads. Letv has never mentioned the possibility of perceiving intelligence, cognitive intelligence, and using AI to enhance the user experience-perhaps in Letv's view, "hardware is free" is the best user experience.

Lacking attention to the basic research of AI, indifferent to the innovation of the hardware layer, and indifferent to the battle for AI talents, Letv embraced a "reading as an advertisement for AI writing" in the mirror.

In fact, this kind of understanding of AI is not unique to Letv's family.

The local AI opportunity is also torn apart by the expanding ecology.

It should be added that Letv incubated, acquired and invested heavily in the huge ecosystem at that time. That can be seen as a cluster of Internet and technology companies, in which it seems entirely possible to incubate AI highlights alone. But it obviously didn't.

In October 2016, I interviewed Zero Paradise, a time-sharing car rental company under Letv Automotive Ecology. The company, which has been cancelled this year, was regarded as "the aggregator of automobile ecological electrification, intelligence, Internet and sharing" within Letv ecology at that time. Catch up with O2O and the sharing economy boom is still going on, the limelight is very strong.

Its main model is to let users place an order on APP to rent a car. Then the biggest difference is that it can support users to return the car in different places. That sounds great, right?

In order to satisfy users' wonderful imagination of renting and returning cars anytime and anywhere, the Zero Leisure team made a lot of technical investment at that time. These include an intelligent parking management system called "Le Yihuan". In order to regulate and control access vehicles from the technical level, the technical team developed a tide scheduling algorithm, which uses AI to judge and adjust the rates of different rental outlets.

To be reasonable, this technology is quite distinctive, and there may be opportunities to show its talents in smart parking scenarios. However, in the business of timesharing, which is not easy, users' requests for ring cars are basically difficult to achieve with technology, and they have to rely heavily on ground operators. Otherwise, the loss of vehicle accumulation and vehicle damage will burst every minute.

Then we saw that excessive development, excessive costs, and unrealistic business plans eventually dragged down Paradise. After being shut down in the first half of 2017, the next news is that it will be disbanded two years later. It was only a few months between placing high hopes on horse racing enclosures and announcing the suspension of operations.

And a large number of Letv's company group, the space for technological development is consumed clean in such a fast run and fast fall.

In May 2016, I visited Letv headquarters in North America, which was called "Ghost Town" by the media a year later. At that time, the building was a legendary existence in the Chinese community of Silicon Valley, and the interior was thriving. What I want to say in hindsight is that at that time, according to the person in charge, marketing personnel accounted for more than half of the positions Letv recruited in Silicon Valley-- which is extremely rare in Silicon Valley companies.

Generally speaking, what Chinese technology companies need is the technological skills of Silicon Valley geeks. At that time, Letv's core task in Silicon Valley was to sell bicycles to the North American market.

This may be a silhouette. An explanation that Letv worked so hard but didn't embrace AI.

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