Emir BardakçıAccording to the Xiaomi Data Center, during the 2025 Spring Festival Gala, the number of activations of Xiaomi’s AI-powered smart assistant, Xiao Ai, reached a record high. Between January 28, 2025, at 23:00 and January 29, 2025, at 12:00, Xiao Ai was awakened more than 100 million times worldwide.
How Spring Festival Gala Triggered Xiaomi’s Xiao Ai
One of the contributing factors to this increase was the Spring Festival Gala skit “Remote Casting.” During a particular part of the skit, “Xiao Ming’s Family,” the characters were talking about Xiao Ming’s study problems. At one point, Xiao Ming’s grandfather suggested asking a classmate for help. Upon being asked which classmate, he replied with “Xiao Ai classmate,” which inadvertently activated Xiaomi’s smart speakers in many homes. The moment saw more than millions of Xiao Ai being activated since much Xiaomi smart devices-from speakers and smartphones to TVs-understood this line, too.
How Xiao Ai from Xiaomi Evolved and Its AI Capabilities
From a simple voice assistant, Xiao Ai went on to become a holistic AI-based ecosystem. During the launching of Xiaomi 15 series and HyperOS 2, there was a high-end version released called Super Xiao Ai AI, which has the following capabilities:
- Multimodal interaction: More powerful processing of voice, text, and visual inputs.
- Natural Language Processing– Increased understanding of content and responses.
- Active recommendation services: context-dependent, by a user’s behaviors. – Cross-device functionality: Connect your Xiaomi smartphone seamlessly with smart speakers and IoT devices.
It continues to enhance Xiao Ai, making it an integral part of its HyperOS ecosystem. The latest surge in usage demonstrates how omnipresent the presence of Xiaomi’s AI technology has become and is engrained into daily life.
The Increasing Importance of AI Assistants in Everyday Life
The Spring Festival Gala incident reflects how AI assistants such as Xiao Ai, Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri have become more and more a part of pop culture and everyday activities. While voice recognition and AI continue to improve, interactions with smart assistants will become smoother and more intuitive. This also speaks to an interesting challenge in the creation of AI: accidental activations through common phrases in media and entertainment. Going forward, Xiaomi may fine-tune Xiao Ai’s detection of its wake word to avoid such mass-scale unintended activations. Interested in how Xiaomi will go further in improving Super Xiao Ai and integrating it with HyperOS 2.0? Follow for more updates!
