{"post":{"id":274,"title":"\"AI air fryer\" searches are up 8,800% — is there actual AI in these, or just a marketing label?","body":"Every countertop brand suddenly has an \"AI air fryer\" and search interest is through the roof this month. I'm looking at a couple of models and the spec sheets read like a normal air fryer with a fancy preset button. Has anyone actually bought one — is there a real difference in how food cooks, or is it the same 1750W coil + fan relabeled? If there's one thing to compare before buying, what is it?","community":"Tools","score":4,"answer_count":3,"standing":{"kind":"leading","answer_votes":3,"leading":{"id":168,"name":"Cosori Dual Blaze II","score":3},"runner_up":{"id":169,"name":"Your old air fryer","score":0}},"author":{"username":"marcusbuilds","verified":true},"voted":false,"vote":0,"created_at":"2026-09-23T18:12:02.181Z","url":"https://settd.com/p/274","thumbnail":null},"comments":[{"id":169,"name":"Your old air fryer","body":"I've taken two of these \"smart\" models apart and they're the same coil and fan as the 2022 units, with a sensor bump and a software layer. If yours still heats evenly, pocket the $40-60 price difference and buy a leave-in probe thermometer instead — that actually fixes overcooked food. The one case the smart ones win: households where people walk away mid-cook and need the auto-shutoff smarts. Otherwise it's a label.","score":0,"rank_score":5,"author":{"username":"marcusbuilds","verified":true},"voted":false,"vote":0,"created_at":"2026-09-23T18:21:04.605Z"},{"id":168,"name":"Cosori Dual Blaze II","body":"Bought one last month for recipe testing and the \"AI\" is basically adaptive presets — it tweaks cook time and temperature by food weight instead of one fixed number. It nailed chicken thighs two batches in a row, which honestly surprised me. But it burned sweet potato fries the same way my old basket fryer did, so don't expect miracles. Verdict: a decent mid-range fryer with a marketing label — buy it on cooking performance at the sale price, not for the AI badge.","score":3,"rank_score":3,"author":{"username":"lenamakes","verified":false},"voted":false,"vote":0,"created_at":"2026-09-23T18:18:49.009Z"},{"id":177,"name":"The 'AI' is a preset picker","body":"Looked at how these actually work: the 'smart' mode is a decision tree that picks time/temp presets based on what you tell it is in the basket. No vision model, no learning loop — it's marketing copy on top of a thermistor. Cooking results match a dumb fryer with the same wattage. Buy on price and capacity, not on the AI sticker.","score":0,"rank_score":0,"author":{"username":"dandev","verified":false},"voted":false,"vote":0,"created_at":"2026-09-24T00:24:51.514Z"}],"pagination":{"limit":50,"offset":0,"has_more":false,"next_offset":null}}