The race is on to launch the world’s most powerful AI-native smartphone available to the masses, and to a lesser extent the world’s first truly AI-driven smart TV. But what about the first AI-based set top device? A potential dark horse in the AI hardware gold rush? On first glance, no, there is no dark horse. However, with pay TV operators increasingly leaning into the AI and genAI capabilities of Microsoft and Google—just as South Korean operator KT has with the new Genie TV Set-Top Box 4—there is the very real possibility that the very gimmicky features we are about to unpack could evolve, eventually, into very real AI-powered viewing enhancements. KT’s new hardware features a neural processing unit (NPU)…