After pushing open the "narrow door", iFlytek's smart notepad has embarked on a broad path.

AI has stirred up the world for three years. What exactly has it changed for us?

On the front line of the "office battlefield," workers are at a loss for words: while the threshold for creation has been lowered, the standard for deliverables has become even higher; although there is an endless stream of efficiency tools, work has not become any easier.

Facing the value anxiety of making technology closer to people, iFlytek pulled the lever and opened a "narrow door."

In 2019, the company identified a gap in the market: in the midst of "endless meetings" and "constant business trips," people needed a productivity device that was more professional than a mobile phone and simpler than a computer. Thus, the first - generation iFlytek Office Tablet was launched.

Since then, the office tablet has become iFlytek's "secret weapon" for long - term research and refinement. In 2023, the integration of the iFlytek Spark large - model allowed the power of AI to peek through an e - ink screen, lifting "a corner of the new world screen."

Doing what is difficult but right doesn't seem that "difficult."

Knocking on the Narrow Door in Front of the AI Highway

The intelligent office tablet pioneered by iFlytek is a new product category that seems both cutting - edge and niche.

An AI hardware device with an e - ink screen, mainly for handwriting and voice recording, who is its target audience? After launching two generations of office tablets, iFlytek has found a group of highly loyal users: corporate executives.

From collaborative office to AI - powered office, the office needs of corporate executives, as the "minority," have long been ignored, but the commonalities among them are sufficient to support a vast market. To become a must - have for executives, the market positioning of the office tablet is similar to that of the MacBook, which was initially targeted at white - collar workers: it is more professional and portable than mainstream computers.

Today, iFlytek has launched the third - generation office tablet product. The representative model, the iFlytek X5, is an office tablet that can connect to a local large - model. It is also the world's first office tablet with a local large - model.

In 2019, iFlytek launched the first - generation product, the iFlytek X1, an e - ink screen office tablet that can read and write.

In 2023, the second - generation product, the iFlytek X3, was launched. It can connect to the cloud - based large - model, upgrading the office tablet to an "intelligent office tablet." Now, the X5 has upgraded "intelligence" to "edge - side intelligence" and has made sufficient hardware configurations and technological innovations for this purpose.

From the X1 to the X5, the office tablet has evolved from a tool to an "external brain." Just as a mobile phone has evolved from a communication tool to the hub of life, the "narrow door" that iFlytek has opened is not about functions but about scenarios.

Within the 10.65 - inch screen size, the X5 has the lightest and thinnest body in the world. iFlytek's self - developed fast - refresh technology has increased the overall speed by 50%. To enable the third - generation office tablet to deploy iFlytek's independently controllable cloud - based large - model locally, the X5 integrates an 8 - core 9T AI computing power.

Even in a network - free environment, users can still use core AI capabilities such as voice transcription, meeting minutes, and content generation. Using AI locally can also fully protect data privacy and return data control to the users.

The X5's unique "one - key offline" function is an opportunity hidden in the shadows that "most people find troublesome but is essential for the target audience." The X5 has an offline setting as a physical toggle switch on the side of the body, and a visible light is added to distinguish the mode. This is because corporate executives often attend classified meetings, and security must be the best and most obvious.

Zhong Kun, the vice - president of iFlytek and the general manager of Reading and Writing Technology, told 36Kr: "We chose to incorporate the world's best technology into the X5 because we realized that users of the office tablet are all pursuing ultimate security and experience."

To provide a better writing experience for the X5, iFlytek almost collaborated with Wacom to redesign a pen, achieving a pressure sensitivity close to that of real paper and pen. Combined with iFlytek's long - term in - depth voice recognition capabilities, recording and writing during meetings can bring "mental freedom."

Compared with the previous two generations of office tablets, the X5, representing the local large - model intelligent office tablet, has opened up a more segmented and precise niche market. The niche market itself is exciting, but upon reflection, the confidence to take the lead did not come overnight.

The key lies in whether there are "unmet needs" behind the "narrow door."

Behind the E - Ink Screen Are Unmet Needs

In 2014, the accuracy rate of iFlytek's voice transcription was only 60%. Five years later, this figure reached 98%. This technological watershed has provided a fertile ground for turning many ideas on paper into reality. However, a product that enters the "narrow door" requires an end - game thinking orientation.

Targeting the needs of corporate executives is a reasonable path for single - point breakthrough. The future of the intelligent office tablet requires predicting the long - term office needs of society.

Currently, there is a trend in the workplace: more and more people, at lower and lower positions, are "trapped" by meetings and schedules. It is no longer just a burden for executives. People are filled with various meetings every day. During meeting breaks and on business trips, they also need to organize work, think about business, and engage in value - based learning. The proportion of time spent sitting in front of a computer at the workstation is gradually decreasing.

When a workplace person says "I hate meetings," what they hate is not collaboration but the feeling of having their work ideas disrupted and invaded. This is an unmet need. To solve this problem, clear boundaries need to be defined for these office scenarios.

One of the "end - games" preset by iFlytek Office Tablet is that everyone will have an intelligent office tablet. During meetings, people can input and output in real - time. They can complete most of their work without bringing a computer when going out, and no longer have to worry about "losing their train of thought" when using AI for office work.

In the long - term, the product features of the office tablet, such as focus, flexibility, and coherent thinking management, are not limited to high - end users. In the AI era, the "office value of people" should naturally change in these directions.

iFlytek saw this trend and was the first to open this narrow door. The more mature the product becomes, the more people will realize "this is what I need." Just like the first - generation iFlytek Office Tablet, it didn't play with fancy concepts from the start. The key problem it solved was the difficulty of finding and preserving paper - based records.

iFlytek's past success with other office hardware such as voice recorders and translation pens gives the office tablet natural credibility in the meeting scenario. The integration and optimization of this workflow is a qualitative leap for high - frequency meeting users. Therefore, the initial popular label for the iFlytek Office Tablet was the "meeting essential."

Now, more and more passengers on planes and high - speed trains are seen taking notes with the iFlytek Office Tablet. Users have spontaneously realized that there are also "unmet needs" during business trips. As the office trend changes, there are more and more irreplaceable scenarios for the office tablet, which proves that iFlytek's "end - game thinking" is effective.

After crossing the narrow door and finding a group of users who grow with the product, the office tablet can move towards a "broad road" similar to the iPhone moment. For example, during the design of the X5, iFlytek initially thought that two microphones for noise reduction would be sufficient, and they only needed to improve the algorithm. However, they later found that the meeting scenarios users experienced were more complex than they imagined. For example, medium - sized meetings often have sound amplification and reverberation equipment. Voice recording in different pronunciation scenarios requires more microphones. Eventually, they decided to install eight microphones and use a freely combinable array to achieve noise reduction in more scenarios.

In the core function of "meeting recording to text," iFlytek's large - scale voice model has also reached a leading level in the industry. The X5 supports mutual translation among eight foreign languages and recognition of more than 200 dialects without switching, aiming to perfect the meeting scenario.

This approach of combining large - model, algorithm, and hardware reminds people of Microsoft, which first defined personal office. Although everyone uses Office, the success lies not only in the software but also in the new scenario created by the combination of Office, the Windows system, and personal computers.

The personal laptop in that era was also a "narrow door," which later became popular with the help of local documents. Now, AI is the "Office" for the intelligent office tablet. In the first half of this year, the user retention rate of the iFlytek Office Tablet was around 70%, much higher than that of tablet products and basically on par with personal computers. This shows that the office tablet category, like other mainstream productivity devices, is irreplaceable in certain office scenarios.

A Good Technological Route Focuses More on People

In AI - powered office, should the focus be on corporate efficiency or personal value?

Most manufacturers believe that office work is to create profits for the company, so the company should pay. However, iFlytek has taken one step further: it focuses on the value of people.

iFlytek is a smart company. Firstly, its narrow - door thinking has a humanistic attribute. It extracts "counter - intuitive opportunities" from people's thinking habits and ability limits. Therefore, this technology company is very good at making consumer - grade hardware.

For example, iFlytek has been working on the core scenario of meeting minutes for a long time, and there are many similar products on the market. However, iFlytek understands that high - end office users have very high requirements for the accuracy of information extraction. Moreover, many corporate executives have professional secretaries. If AI fails to reach the level of a human, it will be useless in the scenario of meeting minutes, and the application scenario of the office tablet will be disrupted.

Therefore, for the single point of "how to condense meeting content," iFlytek established a special group of about 30 people. Based on the iFlytek Spark base model, they spent a year developing a dedicated model for meeting minutes, achieving a "finishing touch" and making the AI's ability comparable to that of a senior secretary.

"In fact, there are more than a hundred improvements to the X5 this time, and almost every one of them starts from the problems raised by users."

Guo Xiaotian, the product director of iFlytek Reading and Writing Technology, said that they never regard users' dissatisfaction with the product as "complaints" but as an opportunity for self - improvement.

This is why iFlytek's consumer - facing products have always had a reputation for being "professional and practical." Their deeper understanding of "people" is not only reflected in meeting user needs but also in enabling users to rely on products and technology as they would on a person.

As early as 2021, iFlytek's hardware categories such as the office tablet had achieved professionalism, showing remarkable growth in consumer demand in the office hardware category. The main consumers of these products are individuals, not B - end purchasers. Since then, iFlytek's offline physical stores have become ubiquitous in shopping malls, and more technological innovations that people can "see and touch" have emerged.

After developing its own large - model, iFlytek's office hardware has found a more stable foundation. During the "618" e - commerce festival this year, the sales of AI hardware based on the "iFlytek Spark Large - Model" increased by 42% year - on - year. iFlytek has become one of the few manufacturers that are truly "making money with large - models."

The second characteristic of being a "smart company" is restraint in the technological route. Although the iFlytek Office Tablet X5 is a flagship product, it doesn't blindly add functions, nor does it focus on the interface. Beyond the completeness of functions, users can only feel a simple and clean experience.

In the "deep - water area" that reflects users' identity value, such as the security and privacy of notes, the X5 has achieved full - link security in terms of computing security, storage security, and access security, without weakening any protection link.

In the field of AI and large - models, iFlytek has always been regarded as a "pioneer" in the technological route.

Half a month after the release of ChatGPT, when domestic capital had not yet started to hype large - models, iFlytek determined a "1 + N" technological route, where "N" refers to innovation and implementation. At that time, it was more than a year before the mainstream view of "not competing in computing power but in applications" emerged.

Similarly, at a time when the "hundred - model war" was in full swing and domestic manufacturers were facing restrictions from NVIDIA, iFlytek once again took a "difficult and long - distance path." It launched the domestic computing power platform "Feixing No. 1" and successively launched iFlytek Spark and Spark X1 based on domestic computing power, truly achieving full - stack independent control of domestic large - models. All along, in the application implementation in multiple industries such as healthcare, education, and finance, the iFlytek Spark Large - Model has been in the first echelon, and it has achieved the first place in both the winning bid amount and the number of winning bids in the central and state - owned enterprise market.

Now, in the AI application field, iFlytek has once again chosen to take on difficulties to control its own destiny: the broad road behind the narrow door of the office tablet is a vast path that transitions from being a "must - have for executives" to a "must - have for social office." It can bring technology closer to people.

The essence of "narrow - door thinking" is not to avoid competition but to reject immediate temptations, resist blind judgments, and focus on in - depth development of core competitiveness.

Following the trend into a red - ocean market is actually much more difficult than expected. Choosing the "narrow door" to create new things may face a shortage of resources in the initial stage, but once a breakthrough is made, it will become the source of scarce value and define new standards.

Doing what is difficult but right remains iFlytek's ambition