Over the past two years, many of my friends have purchased new energy vehicles. They often describe a unique experience: with features like voice commands and autonomous driving, the car stops being "just a car" and begins to feel like a partner — able to perceive, think, and anticipate.

At home, however, AI has long remained confined to relatively "not-so-smart" devices such as voice assistants. Interactions were largely rule-based: if you deviate even slightly from preset commands, the system would often fail to respond properly or produce unsatisfactory results.

That began to change with the rise of large language models, including ChatGPT and other advanced AI systems. Initially confined to chat interfaces, these models were mainly used to answer questions or generate text.

Now, AI is entering more natural, conversational spaces. Take ByteDance's Doubao, for example: it can speak fluently, understand context, respond with emotional intelligence, and even access real-time information. Virtual assistants like these are gradually reshaping everyday life at home.

But voice interaction is only the beginning. The real leap forward comes with multimodal models such as vision-language models (VLMs), which integrate visual and auditory input, greatly enhancing AI's ability to perceive and interpret its surroundings.

Consider meal preparation. Smart recipes existed long before AI, but they were essentially digital versions of printed instructions — you still had to follow each step manually.

Multimodal AI is beginning to change that.

This year, we launched Fotile Healthy Cooking GPT, an AI kitchen assistant that can "watch" your cooking process, provide real-time guidance, and offer subtle reminders. Beyond teaching techniques, it learns your habits and dietary preferences, adapting recipes according to season, weather, and emerging food trends. In this way, meal planning becomes both effortless and balanced.

Today, AI operates in two primary forms: virtual agents that exist in digital environments and embodied robots that function in the physical world. The kitchen is where these two domains converge, creating the possibility of a fully intelligent culinary space.

I believe that in the future, such systems could manage meal preparation from start to finish, delivering complete dishes without compromising flavor.

At the same time, for those who enjoy cooking themselves, AI can step back — offering guidance and support only when needed. In this way, it both frees and enhances the home cooking experience.

Beyond convenience and efficiency, today's smart kitchens are increasingly centered on wellness, especially for younger generations. At the 2026 Fotile World Intelligent Kitchen Ecosystem Conference, we collaborated with partners including Yuwell, a medical device company, and AI-Tongue, a traditional Chinese medicine platform that evaluates health through tongue and facial analysis.

By combining these health insights with our recipe database, the system can recommend meals that integrate nutrition with therapeutic benefits, bringing personalized wellness directly into the home.

A kitchen may be small, but its significance is immense. When AI moves beyond chat windows and begins to truly observe and interpret daily activities, it transforms from a mere tool into a partner that understands you.

This is the vision our generation of engineers is striving to realize.

Deep Dive

As artificial intelligence moves beyond virtual chat windows and into everyday life, the home is becoming the next frontier for innovation, with the kitchen standing out as both the most complex environment and the one most in need of intelligent upgrades. It is not merely where meals are prepared — it is where a family's health is nurtured.

On March 11, Chinese kitchen appliance brand Fotile hosted the 2026 World Intelligent Kitchen Ecosystem Conference, unveiling a vision for the future kitchen — one designed around the diverse dietary habits and wellness needs of Chinese households.

Written by Yu Guitao, director of the Intelligent Research Institute, Fotile Group.