Liz Hamren, The CEO of Amazon’s Ring camera division often wonders whether her husband remembered to take the frozen food package that is regularly delivered to their home. She could bully him or check the footage from their Ring.
Historically, the latter option required her to painstakingly scroll through the Ring app’s video timeline to find out if and when the box was picked up, and by whom. However, in recent weeks, Hamren was able to allow AI to do the searching. She types “package today” into the app and immediately sees a clip of her husband doing his chore, assuming that’s what happened.
The recent Ring Astute Video Search feature announced by the company today will be available on November 5 to all Home Pro subscribers who pay $20 per month or $200 per year. WIRED has been testing this feature over the past few days. This couldn’t facilitate but answer the recurring question in our house: “Did you remember to lock the door?” However, searches for “dog poop,” “gardeners,” and “roller skating” mostly returned right results.
Hamren, who also oversees three other Amazon home technology units, says Ring blocks searches for content it deems “offensive, inappropriate or harmful.” It declined to elaborate beyond saying that weapon names and “qualitative terms referring to people or situations” were among those banned.
Our searches for terms that some may consider sensitive, including “Black,” “turban,” and “gun,” yielded no results, even though there was footage matching these descriptions. “Disabled” include people in wheelchairs and mothers pushing strollers. Ring notes that it will now block searches for “disabled” due to the risk of misuse.
Still, the search capabilities are a huge improvement for Ring, which has popularized home surveillance over the past decade with video doorbells and a growing range of other security gadgets. The problem is that millions of Ring users struggle with a huge library of recordings – potentially spanning up to six months – with minimal features to easily extract the information they contain. Hamren, a former hardware executive at Microsoft and Meta who joined the company in March 2023, wanted to share insights with users without having to dig too deeply into them. Artificial intelligence has made this possible.
Hamren’s reign at Ring also brought about a significant change in the company’s approach to potential customers. Gone are the “Tough on Crime” ads featuring shady characters. It withdrew from a partnership with police where Ring had developed tools that allowed users to easily share videos with law enforcement without having to obtain a warrant.
Nowadays, Ring’s marketing features adorable footage of animals and children, and users are encouraged to share quirky videos with their online communities, not just the sedate ones. The focus is no longer on reducing crime, but rather on reducing anxiety by giving customers a detailed view of what is happening on camera.
Search is just the beginning. Hamren says recent AI models supporting search will eventually allow Ring to notify users of specific situations, such as a bear wandering around the yard or an anomalous puddle on the patio. They will also receive summaries of recent events. “Ultimately our goal is to provide intelligence and context about what’s going on,” he says.