The smart speaker has become the cornerstone of many smart-home setups, but with the economy slowing down, that vision might be at risk.

Amazon and Google, which together account for more than 90% of the US smart-speaker market, per CIRP data shared with us, have faced challenges in recent months.

• And according to IDC, the all-too-familiar tangle of inflation and supply-chain issues led global smart-home device shipments to shrink by an estimated 2.6% last year, to 874 million units.
• The firm predicts the global market will resume growth in 2023 after last year’s decline, with shipments forecast to rise 4.6% this year.

Behind the decline: “Though smart speakers arguably helped launch the smart-home category, the shine of these products has largely worn off for consumers in developed markets such as the United States and China, with shipments expected to decline in the long run,” Jitesh Ubrani, research manager at IDC, said in a release about the research. Read the full piece to see where smart speakers go from here.—JM

More EVs on the road means more drivers looking for access to those sweet, sweet electrons.

EVs reached a potential inflection point in the US last year, surpassing 5% of all new-car sales, and now everyone from consumers and fleet owners to the federal government is trying to figure out where to charge them.

The EV charging industry came out in force at CES in Las Vegas earlier this month, with product and partnership updates that highlighted how companies are trying to capture a piece of this growing market.

• In particular, product announcements about at-home chargers—which are expected to make up more than 80% of all EV charging installations by 2040, according to BloombergNEF—were everywhere at CES.

Zoom out: Solar companies, EV makers, and charging businesses are all considering how EVs fit into entire household energy ecosystems, especially as tax incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act could make the investment more enticing for consumers. Check out our rundown of recent at-home EV charger announcements.—GD

One week ago, we polled you all on a very obscure technology that you surely have not heard anything about in the last nine months or so: generative AI.

The question we presented: Is generative AI a fad or a truly revolutionary technology? The results are in, with more than 1,500 readers weighing in…

• Nearly half of respondents (49%) said the tech is revolutionary.
• Another 40% said it’s somewhere in between a revolution and a fad.
• Only 6% of respondents said it’s a fad, while another 4% weren’t yet sure what to make of its potential.

Although generative AI tools have been in the works for several years, last year was a breakout year for the technology. In large part, that was due to OpenAI’s release of the latest editions of its image-generation (DALL-E 2) and text-generation (ChatGPT) models into the public sphere.

• The technology has sparked concern over artists’ rights and livelihoods, excitement among technologists, a “Code Red” within Google, and, uh, scorn from Nick Cave.
• Now, the big story in the space is just how enmeshed Microsoft and OpenAI will become. The tech giant invested $1 billion into the generative AI leader back in 2019, and now the two are reportedly in talks for a much larger (~$10 billion) and more extensive deal, which could see OpenAI’s now-famous models integrated into Office.

This week’s poll: Do you plan to upgrade to a 5G-compatible phone this year?

Yes
No
Already have one
IDK

Stat: Roblox reported that users spent 4.7 billion total hours “engaged” on its platform last year, up 21% from 2021.

Quote: “It is the first realization of something that we’ve been dreaming of for decades.”—Matteo Clerici, a physicist at the University of Glasgow, on the findings from a new study about laser beams that can…guide lightning

Read: Where battery recycling is headed from here, per the founder and CEO of Redwood Materials.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• 2023 could be a big year for small cells
• Why some VCs are taking notes from a niche battery group
• The year ahead for climate-tech investment