Amazon’s Ring Introduces AI-Powered Video Descriptions, Sends Users Quick Updates About Their Homes

Amazon's Ring, a smart security device brand, introduced a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature on Wednesday. Dubbed Video Descriptions, the feature uses generative AI to send motion activity-based text notifications to users who have installed the company's video cameras and video doorbells. The brand also highlighted that it is now trying to incorporate more AI tools and features in its devices and in-app experience. Notably, Ring mentioned that the new AI feature will be compatible with all the currently available doorbells and cameras.

Amazon's Ring Releases Its First AI Feature

In a newsroom post, Ring's founder, Jamie Siminoff, introduced and detailed the new AI feature. He explained that, with advancements in AI, the company is now exploring ways to leverage this technology to improve users' lives.

Calling it the “first cornerstone pieces of our AI work,” Siminoff introduced Video Descriptions. The new AI feature is aimed at letting users differentiate between urgent and everyday activity inside and outside their homes, without having to watch videos about every captured motion.

With Video Descriptions, AI models use computer vision to analyse the video content and generate a textual description of the same. This description is then shared along with the video footage as a notification. This means users can first read what the captured motion is, before checking the video for added clarity.

The post mentions that the feature has been fine-tuned to ensure that the notifications only describe the main subject that caused a motion alert and the action made by them. Some examples shared in the post include “A person is walking up the steps with a black dog,” and “Two people are peering into a white car in the driveway.” Notably, the company did not disclose the name of the AI model powering this feature.

Siminoff added that the Video Descriptions feature will act as a foundation for the company, and more AI features will be built to expand its capabilities. One such expansion mentioned in the post includes AI-powered notifications that combine multiple motion activities around the house into a single alert. Ring also plans to build a custom anomaly alert feature that will only be sent when “something happens on your property that is an anomaly to your property.”

Video Descriptions is currently available in beta to the Ring Home Premium subscribers in Canada and the US. It is currently available only in the English language and can be enabled through the Ring app. All the currently available Ring doorbells and cameras support this feature.