A Brief Guide to Understanding Edge AI

The past few years have seen a lot of rapid technological advancements. It was just a few years ago when a mobile phone was used for communication and today it is used as an essential tool for many different operations. 

As more and more people rely heavily on technology, there is an increasing need to bring essential computation and data processing to better serve the people. For this reason, Edge AI takes the top spot for being the best AI technology. 


It has accelerated the data creation and processing in many different platforms especially in machine operations. Understanding Edge AI might be difficult at first. However, it is rather simple, we’ll tell you about it next. 

A Brief Guide to Understanding Edge AI
Image Source: Wire19

What is Edge AI?

Edge AI is a technology that uses AI algorithms that can be processed within a device. 

There is no need for any form of connection to a server or another computer as the algorithms are done within the device through sensor data or signals. 

A device using Edge AI can work independently but will still need to use a microprocessor and sensors.

The Importance of Edge AI

Edge AI allows real-time data creation, data processing, decision-making, and resulting action within a span of milliseconds. This ultimately matters in certain fields of operation where every second count. 

It is a unique yet very essential aspect of technology such as self-driving cars and robots in manufacturing industries. 

Edge AI is also an important technology that is used in wearable devices as it reduces the consumption of power thus help promote battery life. And that’s because less data us being transmitted due to its processing system,

Edge AI essentially reduces the cost of data communication. The locally-processed data will also free up space for your cloud storage thus there is no need for you to store more data and crowd out your storage.

Image and Audio Analytics

One of the many applications of Edge AI is through image analytics. This is done through real-time recognition in video streaming. 

The AI will recognize the different visual scenes as well as understand the scene for context analysis, it will also provide user verification for security purposes.

Another application of AI technology is through audio analytics. Edge AI can detect different audio files and separate them. It can detect overlapping sounds by breaking them down into small fragments done by recognition. 

The sound is then processed and separated into many different audio profiles for the user to choose from.

A Brief Guide to Understanding Edge AI
Image Source: EE Times Asia

Healthcare and Industrial Application

Not a lot of people notice this but wearable mobile devices use Edge AI to detect the user’s location, physical activity, heart rate, and any other movement from the user.

It is commonly found in health-related wearable devices that cater to many chronically-ill patients. This way, the user can keep track of their overall progress and allow healthcare workers to monitor outside healthcare facilities.

Machines with built-in sensors are another great application of Edge AI. This allows machines to measure temperature, vibration, noises, and many other factors. 

The sensors allow users to detect if there are anomalies to the processes within the machine. Simply put, machines using Edge AI are far more equipped at preventing accidents such as overheating due to their early detection mechanism.


A lot of us take technology for granted. On the surface level, everything seems to be very simple. However, the application of Edge AI is far more complex and superior to anything that we have invented so far. 

This technology has helped and save countless lives over the past few years with the potential to save more in the future.