According to a new report from Counterpoint Research, Apple accounted for roughly 90% of all Edge AI-capable smartwatch shipments in the first quarter of 2026. The data, from Counterpoint's Global Smartwatch Shipments Tracker, shows that Edge AI penetration across the broader smartwatch market grew 70% year-over-year, reaching 25% in Q1 2026.
What Edge AI Means for Wearables
Edge AI refers to artificial intelligence that runs directly on a device's own chip rather than being processed on remote servers. On the Apple Watch, the onboard Neural Engine handles tasks like recognizing an irregular heartbeat or detecting a fall in real time, without sending data to a paired iPhone or the cloud. Anshika Jain, Principal Analyst at Counterpoint, noted that brands have been continuously upgrading smartwatch hardware to make devices more AI-capable, and that Edge AI integration enables real-time health insights and faster responses while ensuring data privacy.
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Health Monitoring Drives Adoption
Health and fitness monitoring remains the primary use case for Edge AI on smartwatches. Counterpoint's data shows blood pressure monitoring shipments doubled and sleep apnea detection tripled year over year, with brands now setting their sights on diabetes detection next. Apple's head start traces back to 2023, when it introduced the S9 chip with a 4-core Neural Engine built specifically for on-device machine learning. Huawei followed with comparable silicon in 2025 with the Kirin W80 chip, while Qualcomm is entering the race this year with its Snapdragon Wear Elite platform. Google is also rumored to be readying its own Tensor-based wearable chip, though it has yet to ship.
Software-Driven Alternatives Emerge
Counterpoint notes that a software-driven alternative to dedicated NPUs is also emerging. Ambiq's Apollo platform runs AI inference on vector-core silicon via Arm's Helium extensions rather than purpose-built neural hardware. This approach remains a niche compared to Apple's dedicated-chip strategy, but it could eventually help cheaper smartwatches offer some Edge AI features without the silicon Apple has spent years building into its devices. Counterpoint only classifies a smartwatch as Edge AI-capable if it has a neural engine or NPU on board and at least one health, safety, or interaction feature actually runs its inference on that chip.
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Apple's dominance in Edge AI wearables contrasts with the cloud-focused AI strategies of companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, emphasizing on-device processing for privacy and speed. For more on Edge AI, see the Wikipedia entry.
Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/10/apple-watch-accounts-for-most-ai-smartwatches
