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If CES in 2025 is defined more accurately, it seems that the Technology Spring Festival Gala should be renamed AI Spring Festival Gala.

Jen-Hsun Huang, who is wearing a bright jacket, has more than 300 AI glasses, as well as countless AI homes, robots, and smart driving. AI is a well-deserved protagonist. Two years after the birth of ChatGPT, AI is finally no longer a game for a few people. The explosion from the cloud side to the end side seems to have become the main tone of 2025.

Before Huang Renxun’s speech, as the Chinese brand with the largest booth area at CES 2025, TCL also became the focus of attention. It is not difficult to see from the product rhythm and multi-category layout that All in AI seems to have become one of TCL's most important strategies at the moment.

On January 6, TCL founder Li Dongsheng said frankly at CES that TCL will not only exhibit more than 120 technological products in 25 major categories, but also focus on displaying TCL’s latest achievements in the application and development of artificial intelligence. . Earlier in December, TCL released full-scenario AI applications such as AI intelligent operating system and small T central control large model at its Global Technology Innovation Conference (TIC2024). It also demonstrated AI refrigerators, AI air conditioners, AI Dozens of AI smart terminal products such as TVs and learning machines.

Technology companies and manufacturing companies were originally very different from a genetic point of view. Through years of accumulation of mobile phones and the success of electric vehicles, Xiaomi gradually got rid of the impression of a pure manufacturing company and completed the improvement of its valuation. . Today's TCL undoubtedly wants to use AI to replicate such a path, but the road ahead is still full of thorns.

Embracing AI is obviously not a simple question. There were Apple and Tesla before it, followed by Ideal and Xiaomi. The trend has been determined, but grasping it is not a simple matter of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. TCL has excellent It has a strong manufacturing foundation and leading supply chain capabilities, but the understanding of AI shown today seems unconvincing. The company's more radical layout is inevitably reminiscent of the earlier era of new energy explosion. The merger of TCL and Zhonghuan was not unradical and became a minefield laid in the early stage.

Taking stock market concepts and chasing technology trends seems to be what TCL is good at, but whether it can complete empowerment and transformation in a hurry has to be questioned.

Today, TCL's photovoltaic business has fallen into losses again, and its traditional panel business is still hovering at the bottom of the cycle, bearing the risks of meager profits. The AI ​​home appliances sector that TCL values ​​more, although it has achieved rapid growth, essentially seems to be more like a product of keeping pace. Whether it is the AI ​​wave, overseas inflation, or the trade-in of domestic home appliances, they are all Point to changes in external conditions. But from an internal perspective, the most critical white goods unit was not completed until 2023 and was renamed TCL Smart Home. And because of the ecological linkage between them, to a certain extent, it seems that the chemical reaction has not yet been completed.

TCL is like an old horse who keeps working hardTraveling, rushing, timing, parrying, coping with changes in the outside world, and this time AI has become a new direction. But judging from the current situation, it seems to be very similar to many TCL actions in history. TCL has accumulated a lot of experience, but whether it can complete the transformation seems to be still in the fog.

01. Follow the old path of Samsung and Sony

If CES is a mirror, looking at the products, it can reflect the true ambitions of each company .

At CES, TCL launched a very long product list, including more than 100 innovative technological achievements in 25 categories, covering TVs, e-sports screens, tablets, mobile phones, Thunderbird AR glasses, and car displays. , air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, AI robots, smart door locks, security cameras, automotive smart cockpit solutions and smart home energy product solutions, etc.

This list is actually similar to what was released at the 2024 TCL Global Technology Innovation Conference (TIC2024) held by TCL in December. In this conference, although TCL lively displayed AI refrigerators and AI air conditioners , AI TV, learning machine and other dozens of AI intelligent terminal products. But the corresponding AI technology content focuses on five aspects, that is, it integrates five innovative applications such as AI intelligent operation, AI simulation, small T central control large model, AI movie production, and Xingzhi X-Intelligence2.0. "TCL's all-field, all-scenario AI application solutions."

Looking carefully, TCL’s attitude towards AI can be clearly seen in these five AI directions. AI intelligent operation points to intelligent product interaction, AI simulation is applied to product design and performance optimization, and The large-scale model is used in smart home scenarios, while AI movie production focuses on the content side, and the star intelligence model is on the production side.

Product interaction, performance optimization, content production, scene coordination, and production efficiency improvement are the directions in which TCL focuses on deploying AI. Comparing from this perspective, it seems to have a certain similarity with the AloT proposed by Xiaomi back then. TCL's AI focuses more on optimizing the existing overall chain. It can be observed from multiple demonstration videos that functions such as voice recognition, intelligent recommendations, and screen power saving are intuitive changes.

But in 2018, Luo Yonghao launched the Nut TNT workstation, which seemed to have similar functional demonstrations. Whether such a product can be established is still unknown. But from TCL’s layout of the entire AI chain, it seems that the company’s ultimate expectations for AI can be deduced.

According to a report by economist He Gang, among the Fortune magazine's 2023 Fortune Global 500, there are a total of 6 home appliance companies in the world on the list. The rankings are: South Korea's Samsung Electronics, Japan's Sony, South Korea's LG Electronics, Japan's Panasonic, China's Midea and Haier Smart Home.

This ranking is based on the revenue scale of each company in 2022: Samsung Electronics’ revenue is close to 240 billion U.S. dollars, Sony’s is 85 billion U.S. dollars, and LGElectronics is about US$65 billion, Panasonic is about US$62 billion; Midea is only US$51.4 billion, Haier Smart Home is only US$36.2 billion, and the two Chinese companies combined are less than half of Samsung.

Similar to TCL, Samsung is not a typical home appliance company. The chip and mobile terminal business are the company’s traditional pillar industries. Of the revenue of more than 200 billion, chip semiconductors account for half, while the mobile phone business accounts for half. 30%. The advantages of upstream manufacturing directly empower downstream products, and the brand mentality of the mobile phone business also drives the growth of home appliances. In the global TV market, Samsung TV sales still account for about 30% of the entire industry, significantly ahead of LG Electronics and Sony; especially in ultra-large screen TV products above 75 inches, Samsung occupies approximately 10% of the global market share. 50% market share.

At the same time, in the U.S. home appliance market, which has global benchmark value, Samsung has surpassed other home appliance peers for many years, accounting for about 20% of the market share. Especially in the field of home appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines, Samsung has It is the leader in the US market.

TCL is obviously imitating Samsung’s path in its industrial layout. TCL's panel business also plays a key enabling role in downstream home appliances, and is the basis for TCL to quickly apply AI to home appliances.

At the same time, TCL seems to be imitating the second place Sony. Looking at the composition of Sony's operating income alone, the media and entertainment business contributes more than half, while the traditional home appliance hardware products contribute less than 30%. It is precisely Sony's media and entertainment content with obvious advantages, together with its consumer electronics hardware and technical services, that form a more complete business ecosystem that makes Sony the most important leader in three-dimensional competition in the global home appliance industry.

This time, TCL has particularly emphasized AI film production and continued to work hard on content. In November 2024, the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood will premiere 5 films by well-known screenwriters and directors. Short movies generated on TCL AI content creation platform. In 2025, TCL plans to launch the first 90-minute AI movie in North American theaters, which will further promote the innovation and application of AI technology in the field of film and television creation.

Using AI as the technical direction to complete industrial upgrading and competitiveness improvement through the routes of Samsung and Sony seems to outline all of TCL’s expectations for AI.

02. The body of concept upgrade

Although the route is clear, Judging from the actual results, the winning rate seems to be the key to determining whether TCL can break through in the AI ​​field.

As a high-end manufacturing company, TCL’s relationship with AI does not have a long history. According to 36Kr’s report, starting from the fourth quarter of 2022, TCL Industrial will explore various large models and launch them in 2023. Many integrationsLarge model products. As for the recent R&D event, from the perspective of actual products, TCL’s AI content appears to be somewhat unsatisfactory. The integration of Chatbot and TV, the integration of intelligent temperature control and air conditioning. It looks more like a collection of micro-innovations, not a completely new disruption.

Due to the large number of product lines and strong differences in technical reserves, it is difficult for TCL products to summarize the overall brand image in one word, and the empowerment of AI for each business is also significantly different. It is easy to think that Xiaomi will eventually achieve something in AloT, the focus of IoT and AloT in the Internet of Everything era. Today, it looks more like polishing products and designs than embracing technology.

TCL’s strength lies in the panel. This time it can also be seen that TCL has put a lot of effort into the panel. The company launched the 2025 “image quality ceiling” X11K QD-Mini LED TV. According to the TCL press release, this TV uses the world's leading QD-Mini LED technology. With 14,000-level light control zones and 6,500nits peak brightness, it can present more picture details. Its global halo control technology can effectively solve the common halo problem in the industry.

The cutting edge in the manufacturing field is TCL’s specialty, but for the AI ​​part of the TV line, it seems much simpler. Overseas, TCL claims that it will be connected to the Google AI large model Gemini, and is expected to launch the world's first TV equipped with Gemini AI functions in 2025. The domestic version has similar functions, and AI seems to be more reflected in the direction of intelligent interaction. Based on the performance improvement of existing strengths, the interactive experience of superimposed AI chatbot seems to be a reflection of TCL's existing capabilities.

It can be seen from this that TCL’s competitive advantage still lies more in manufacturing technology rather than AI. However, the advantages of traditional panels still seem to have no chemical reaction in supporting AI.

In the field of content, TCL’s so-called AI movie production seems to have its own limitations due to internal and external conditions. According to 404Media, TCL used AI tools such as ComfyUI, Nuke and Runway. It is worth mentioning that all TCL short films are written, directed and scored by real people, including some faces we may be familiar with.

At the film screening, TCL North America Chief Content Officer Chris Regina said that there were "more than 50 animators, editors, special effects artists, professional researchers and scientists" involved in these films. of production. The success of TCL's AI content relies more on promoting a service created for targeted advertising and using generative AI to achieve fast, low-cost content creation.

From the above point of view, TCL is more of a content producer. It is still in a relatively early stage in terms of technology and content, and relies more on TCL TV in overseas markets.The traffic effect brought about by larger shipments. In essence, it is more like a content cost reduction tool. Judging from relevant experience, there are many attempts in this direction. The Kuaishou Keling model has also been used by Coca-Cola to produce AI advertisements. However, the reputation has been high but the results are still difficult to compete with regular content.

To sum up, for TCL, AI is more like a shell of concept upgrade. Whether on the manufacturing side, product side, or content side, TCL’s application of AI seems to be still in its early stages of simplicity. In the additive stage, mature AI technology and AI tools are applied to optimize the functionality of the product.

It has to be said that from an operational perspective, this method has lower trial and error costs, and at the same time, the application speed is very fast. If AI is used as an additional link in the supply chain enterprise, you may be able to gain good results. effect. However, judging from the current competitive landscape of the industry, it has become a trend for major manufacturers to all-in AI. Li Xiang, founder of Li Auto, once said frankly that the essence of AI is the improvement of capabilities, not the optimization of functions. As for AI technology, the question of whether it is a protagonist or a supporting role seems to have become a must-answer question for TCL in the future.

03. Falling into passivity in the competition

In this wave of AI changes, how much dividends can TCL reap?

As a leading company in the end-side upstream and downstream layout, TCL has a good first-mover advantage. As TCL’s “veteran powerhouse”, the panel business has been a global leader for many years and has accumulated profound technological foundation and scale. Advantages. This not only provides core components for downstream home appliances, ensuring supply stability and cost controllability. For example, TCL TV relies on its self-developed high-end panels to compete with international competitors; it has also become a key enablement point in the AI ​​era, providing high-definition, Intelligent interactive display window realizes the leap from pure visual presentation to intelligent interactive center.

Accumulation in the manufacturing field is also TCL’s “ballast stone.” TCL has been engaged in home appliance manufacturing for a long time, and has built a mature industrial chain and efficient supply chain system, which can quickly respond to market demand and achieve a seamless transition from product design to mass production. When AI technology is integrated, such as the R&D and production of smart air conditioners and smart refrigerators, we can rely on existing manufacturing advantages to accelerate the implementation of AI products, quickly transform new technologies into market supply products, and seize the opportunity.

But on the other hand, AI is also like a big gamble for TCL. The rich genes of manufacturing companies are destined to allow TCL to make more use of its late-mover advantage, which means that in the value chain, TCL can only be ranked at the middle and lower end.

Top technology companies such as Google and Microsoft have significant advantages in algorithms, computing power, and data processing. As a traditional manufacturing transformation company, TCL has a very difficult time catching up. Even for companies such as Samsung and Sony, TCL does not have much advantage. Taking AI large model training as an example, it requires massive data and top-level computing power support, and there is a slight lag.The functions may become second-rate, and the accuracy of intelligent interaction and content recommendation fit will not be as good as those of competing products, and they will become passive in the market competition.

In terms of market acceptance, although there are benefits such as state subsidies, consumers’ awareness and demand for AI home appliances are still being cultivated. Some smart functions are flashy and complicated to operate. Moreover, the cost of AI home appliances has increased due to technology embedding. If it is unable to accurately position the mid-to-high-end market, set reasonable prices, and balance costs and selling prices, it will easily fall into the dilemma of "approval but not popularity". It will be difficult to recoup early R&D investment, hindering the industrial upgrading process.

In terms of competition, major technology manufacturers and home appliance giants are investing heavily in AIoT. Midea, Haier and others have been deeply involved in the intelligentization of home appliances for many years, with a huge user base and mature ecosystem. Xiaomi and Huawei have entered the market with their brand, technology, and ecological full-link advantages, extending from mobile phones and communications to whole-house intelligence. TCL must not only break through the traditional home appliance brand image, but also stand out among emerging AI brands. It needs to work hard on product differentiation, ecological openness, and user experience optimization. If it is not careful, it may be drowned in the AIoT red ocean and AI transformation It was reduced to nothing and fell into the "bottleneck" of industrial upgrading.

In an interview with "Thirteen Invitations", Li Dongsheng once said frankly, "No business decision of any company is without risks. Companies will always swim against the current, and if they don't advance, they will retreat. If you don't go now, If you don’t make changes and don’t bother, you will be finished in two or three years.” But unlike traditional manufacturing, AI cannot be achieved through hard work alone, and from now on, the road ahead is still full of thorns for TCL to break through. , effort alone is obviously not enough.