Print AI: HP injects AI into its printers
HP jumped on the AI bandwagon today when it announced Print AI for its printers. Is it a ploy to extract even more money from unsuspecting customers, or something truly useful?
Here are the details:
- Print AI is available as a Beta.
- It adds new features to select HP printers.
- HP has not mentioned the price of the feature.
Perfect Output
HP highlighted two features of Print AI. It calls the first Perfect Output; a feature designed to remove unwanted elements before printing and to optimize printouts.
The example that HP gives is that of a webpage printout. These may waste a lot of ink and paper, if they are not optimized, as printouts may include ads, menus, and other unwanted content.
HP says that Perfect Output takes care of that through AI. The new feature will also help when printing spreadsheets. The new feature ensures that tablets and charts are not split across multiple printout pages.
How does it work? Through an interface that resembles other AI interactions. HP Print AI seems to combine options to communicate with the AI directly with options that the AI displays to the user that may be selected.
The AI displays several options in the previously mentioned webpage output interface. These allow users to switch between text, text and image, or text with more images. There are also options to increase the text size or generate a new design of the output. Other changes may be submitted via text input.
Print AI turned 47 pages of printout into a single page printout in the example that HP gives. It remains to be seen how well the feature handles printouts in real-world scenarios and tests.
HP provided the following before and after screenshots:
Next to optimizing printing, Print AI is also "simplifying the customer experience" according to HP. The AI improves workflows and helps users, accepting natural language input.
The last option allows customers to "transform photos into creative projects". This allows users through chats with the AI to create "unique layouts, custom styles, and fonts to personalize greeting cards for every occasion".
The AI is also auto-correcting common print errors. HP mentions the removal of unwanted objects and automatic upscaling of images here.
Closing Words
It is too early to tell how well the two features function. Print AI is available via an exclusive beta program at the time of writing. It is unclear when it lands, for which printers it will become available, and how much it will cost. There is no doubt that HP will charge for the feature, either directly or indirectly.
One thing that has not been mentioned either is privacy. Is the processing happening on servers elsewhere, or locally?
It will be interesting to see when customers get into an argument with the AI over third-party printer ink cartridges and other attempts to extract more money from customers.
What is your take on Print AI? Does it sound useful to you and would you use it even? Feel free to write a comment down below.
I feel HP is on its way to going out business. Their “ideas” which are nothing more than scams trying to get more money out of their customers will be implemented by the time the company is totally broke. Their PC division sells junk systems (most with celeron processors), no one wants their crappy printers, and they themselves have ruined their reputations with their “creativity”. I’m looking forward to see the day they file for bankruptcy.
A neighbor of mine who is not really tech savy has all the Smart and AI assisted items in their home thermostat, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, etc.. I work in IT and they are constantly asking how to seup this and that device. I have none of the so called smart devices as I can see and am concerned about the invasiveness, data stealing, and privacy issues these devices come with.
The PrintFriendly extension already removes unwanted ads and sidebars.
Eventually AI will become universal throughout ALL of our lives.
Then, we will receive the mark of the beast (neuralink or something similar in tandem with hand vein and face scans for buying and selling) and will all be trackable via satellite. An additional rewards/punishment system may come into play.
I hope I’m gone before then.
I am absolutely not laughing about your concerns. I share them and agree with your comment entirely.
Browsers have a small icon to the right of the URL. I can click that to turn a web page into reading mode then print. It should carry a warning: ‘Feature added by marketers’
“How does it work?”
As it was not specified I would assume you need an internet connection so everything can be sent to HP servers where the AI actually is. There the raw data will be used to ‘enhance’ your advertising profile.
We’ve been using HP printers for a long time and the one we have now, which we only bought because the ink costs 50% less then our old one even though it’s physically the same exact cartidge with a different sticker on it, will be the last product we ever buy from HP.
Note: HP is actually an “multinational information technology company” and “As of 2024, it is the world’s second-largest personal computer vendor”. source: ‘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Inc.’
People who worry about software spying on them may want to take a closer look at their hardware.
I avoid as much as possible all things AI. I not only distrust the security and privacy aspects, but in old fashon terms I just expect whatever information I consume to come from a human.
Mother of God.
Anyway, thanks for the article.
On the surface this seems reasonable. However, I’d be cautious with HP. There’s no telling what they could be doing in the background.
I do not have an HP printer. But I am sure other manufactures will be considering this.
Useful feature or not, ever since HP began chipping their cartridges I have recommended Brother printers to our customers.
HP has bad practices for printers (and everything else). It was reported on this website that if you buy certain HP printers with “forever ink” service and decide to cancel “forever ink” service, printers were bricked. I would bet AI Printer service will follow the same model. As soon as you decide that AI service too expensive, they will brick your printer.
At least at this stage of AI it seems like the products keep coming but the customers don’t seem as enthusiastic about AI and a little skeptical this is more hype and a means to wring more money out of them. There is a cost vs benefit here with AI that has yet to be fully explored. Much of AI is going to require a lot of processing and energy and with everyone jumping on the AI bandwagon. I have to wonder how much energy consumption that will be.
Also, the advantage of Nuclear power for AI is that you spend something like $5B in initial cost for the plant, but kWh cost will very low and stay low. Way lower than any other energy production method on the market. And if you do not need to connect your plant to the power grid, kWh cost will be even lower. On top of that, new generation of reactors produce fraction of radioactive leftovers comparing to previous reactor models. They do not need ton space to store it on site for many years before utilization. Regular nuclear energy is the way to go until nuclear fusion is ready for commercial implementation, maybe in 30–50 years.
I heard a report that Copilot needs so much energy that Microsoft is building an AI center near a Nuclear Power plant in New York. They do not want to pay for transmission costs. Feed it right from the reactor.
You recall the Harrisburg disaster from 1979 ? Microsoft actually pays to build their own nuclear power plant from an unfinished part of the plant and several other tech companies also aim to invest in this area albeit different technologies to secure energy. So yes, the stuff is crazy energy expensive.
For test purposes I ran one of these LLM models at home a few months ago (not the biggest ones), the CPU/GPU-demand was purely breathtaking, despite the system having just a single user and using a pretty powerful rig.