TVs are going through a paradigm shift once again in terms of software. Back in the 2010s, the “smart” category was the confusing new label. Now it’s the 2020s, and AI TVs are increasingly taking over the market. Case in point – many new TV boxes now have “AI” stamped on them somewhere. If it’s smart, there’s a good chance it also offers AI in some form. So manufacturers are really running with the label. Sometimes, an AI TV is just a smart TV with a few extra tricks. That doesn’t mean the distinction is fake, though. It just means the line between the two has gotten fuzzier, which leaves a lot of people wondering whether AI TVs are the future or just a flashy upgrade.

Today, a smart TV is far easier to understand. You probably already have one in your living room. It’s basically anything that connects to Wi-Fi, runs apps like Netflix, YouTube, and whatever else, mirrors your phone, and lets you bark simple commands at the remote. That covers the bulk of what most people actually do with a TV in 2026. They’re so common that in the United States, you can often pick up a small 1080p model for around $80 on Amazon, Best Buy, or Walmart.

An AI TV starts from that same baseline, meaning all AI TVs are smart TVs — though not all smart TVs are AI TVs. That’s because they pile a bunch of extras on top, which often demand more processing power than regular smart TVs are built to handle.

Many of the extras an AI TV comes with run on-device, which is why the chips inside need a bit more power. One example is the ability to process picture quality in real time. The processor analyzes each scene and tries to increase the sharpness, contrast, and color depth, which especially helps when you’re watching anything below 4K. Brands also have their own specific enhancements. Samsung is increasingly adding AI to its TVs, including a feature called AI Motion Enhancer Pro. One of the things it can do is spot what kind of ball is in play during a sports broadcast and redraw it frame by frame to reduce motion blur. Then there’s LG with its AI Director Processing, which also processes things frame by frame, except it focuses on colors, attempting to lock them to whatever the director was actually aiming for.

Audio gets a similar treatment. Some AI TVs are a lot better at separating dialogue from loud effects than regular TVs, which means you’re not constantly riding the volume. Voice control turns into a less robotic experience, too, with the TV understanding natural language commands. The recommendation engine also becomes more accurate the more you watch TV.

Again, all of this is handled by the processor inside. The more powerful it is, the more it can pull off in real time. For instance, Samsung’s flagship 8K TVs — which may or may not be worth it for you – run something called the NQ8 AI Gen3 processor that actually features a Neural Processing Unit (NPU). Basic smart TVs generally do not have dedicated NPUs.

The NPU comes in handy for tasks like enhancing lower-resolution content to 8K, which it does using 768 neural networks. It’s a demanding task – the chip basically has to invent millions of new pixels to fill out the display at the upscaled resolution. Now, this is a flagship processor, and not all AI TVs, particularly budget models, ship with that kind of muscle. Plenty of models feature weaker chips that handle basic tasks like scene detection or simpler voice commands.

Going forward, expect more models to tout AI capabilities

Today, they exist mostly in the mid- and high-end ranges but are slowly starting to make it to cheaper offerings. With time, it’s likely that every TV will be an AI TV, the same way all TVs are smart TVs now. You can already see some evidence of that. Back in 2017, when AI TVs first landed, Xiaomi sold its Mi TV 4A in China in separate standard and AI versions. The 49-inch went for 2,599 yuan ($382) in standard form, then bumped up to 2,899 yuan ($426) for the AI variant, which mostly added a voice remote and 32GB of storage. That kind of split-tier setup is less common, as the expanding AI TV catalog mostly ships in a single AI variant these days.