The Apple Watch had a 90% share of all Edge AI-capable smartwatch shipments in the first quarter of 2026, according to new data from Counterpoint Research.
Apple’s wearable dominated the market as Edge AI penetration across the entire smartwatch market grew 70% year-over-year, reaching 25% in the first quarter of 2026, according to Counterpoint’s Global Smartwatch Shipments Tracker.
“Edge AI” refers to artificial intelligence that runs directly on a device’s own chip rather than being processed on remote servers. The Apple Watch has an onboard Neural Engine that handles recognizing an irregular heartbeat or detecting a fall, without the need to send data to a paired iPhone or the cloud first.
Anshika Jain, Principal Analyst at Counterpoint Research, said:
Brands have been continuously upgrading their smartwatch hardware to make devices more AI-capable. Edge AI integration enables real-time health insights and faster responses while helping ensure data privacy. Currently, Edge AI penetration remains limited to leading brands, with Apple solely accounting for ~90% of Edge AI smartwatch shipments in Q1 2026.
Edge AI is mainly used for health and fitness monitoring on smartwatches. Counterpoint says blood pressure monitoring shipments doubled and sleep apnea detection tripled year over year, with brands now focusing on diabetes detection as the next big features.
Apple first debuted the Apple Watch’s S9 chip in 2023, which has a 4-core Neural Engine built specifically for on-device machine learning in the Apple Watch. Huawei was the next company to deliver comparable silicon, but not until 2025. Qualcomm just entered the race this year with its Snapdragon Wear Elite platform. Google is reportedly readying its own Tensor-based wearable chip, but it is not ready for prime time.
Counterpoint defines Edge AI smartwatches as “wearable devices with a dedicated neural engine or NPU that runs machine learning inference partially or fully on-device. To qualify, at least one health, safety, or interaction feature must have its primary inference path executing locally on that accelerator.”
A software-driven alternative to dedicated NPUs is also making the scene, as Ambiq’s Apollo platform runs AI inference on vector-core silicon via Arm’s Helium extensions rather than purpose-built neural hardware. That approach could eventually result in cheaper smartwatches that offer some Edge AI features without investing in silicon like Apple and other firms.