Ring security cameras are displayed on a shelf at a Target store on June 01, 2023 in Novato, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Amazon‘s Ring video doorbell division is rolling out AI-generated notifications alerting users to unusual or suspicious activity around their home, the company said Wednesday.
The tool uses artificial intelligence to generate text summaries of motion activity captured by Ring doorbells and cameras, which are then displayed as a phone notification. The summaries describe only the main subject that triggered the alert and are “intentionally concise” so that users can quickly discern whether it’s urgent, Ring said.
The feature is rolling out in beta starting Wednesday to Ring premium subscribers in the U.S. and Canada.
The Amazon division is launching the tool as part of a broader push by the doorbell maker into AI, Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff said in a release.
“We are just starting to scratch the surface of AI,” said Siminoff, who founded Ring in 2011.
Siminoff returned to run Ring in April after exiting in 2023. Amazon acquired Ring in 2018 for a reported $1 billion, giving it a stronger foothold in the smart home and home security categories.
Ring is primarily known for its connected doorbell devices, which allow users to record activity in front of their homes, though it has expanded to include a portfolio of products ranging from camera-equipped floodlights and alarm systems to flying security camera drones.
“I see unlimited potential for new experiences we can invent for our neighbors,” Siminoff said.
The company has long sparked controversy about privacy due to its controversial partnerships with hundreds of police departments across the U.S. Privacy advocates have expressed concern that the program, and Ring’s accompanying Neighbors app, have heightened the risk of racial profiling and turned residents into informants, with few guardrails around how law enforcement can use the material.
Ring in 2024 removed a feature that allowed police to request footage from users directly.
Other tech companies have injected generative AI features in their products only to encounter flaws with the technology. In January, Apple disabled a feature that used AI to aggregate and summarize news notifications after it erroneously characterized some outlets’ headlines. Google last year paused the rollout of its Gemini AI image generator after it produced “inaccuracies” in historical pictures.
