Will AI kill the smartphone?

Life without a smartphone may seem unimaginable, but AI giants are planning to put the ubiquitous gadget on the scrapheap. “The race to unseat the smartphone is on”, said The Economist, and the AI-powered new generation of devices lined up to replace it could radically change our lives.

Disrupting the duopoly

Over the last 20 years, the smartphone has “come to dominate how consumers interact with the digital world”, creating “one of the most lucrative duopolies in business history”, in the shape of Apple’s iPhone, and Google’s Android operating system.

The “Lennon and McCartney of the smartphone era” have never sought to rock each other’s boat and, in fact, they’re “only deepening their collaboration in the AI era”, but challengers now hope to “disrupt the duopoly”. OpenAI says it’s “on track” to unveil its own device in the second half of the year, while Meta is developing AI-powered smart glasses, and Amazon has “rolled out” Alexa+, its own AI assistant to its Echo smart speakers. It plans to also add Alexa+ to its Echo smart glasses and earbuds.

This isn’t just about money: some disrupters have “long-standing grievances” with the smartphone “tribute system” that means developers pay Apple a commission of up to 30% on purchases made through apps running on its operating system. Apple has also riled up Meta by making it harder for the social-media giant to “hoover up data” from its gadgets.

Many of the world’s biggest tech companies think that a “radical shift is underway”, and that it could eventually make the smartphone, as we know it, “passé”, said The New York Times.

AI on the go

Modern artificially intelligent assistants are “far more capable and flexible” than “clunky voice helpers” like Siri, and will supersede smartphone software in importance, according to experts interviewed by the newspaper. Apps will lose their relevance when AI assistants are “automatically carrying out tasks” like “making plans with friends, generating shopping lists and taking notes in meetings”. This will “spare us the need to swipe through software menus and type on keyboards”.

Smartphones could be replaced by smart glasses, while “ambient computers”, which include “microphone-equipped speakers” and screens “placed throughout a home and gadgets worn on the body” will also dovetail with AI assistants. “Reimagined” smartwatches and AI pendants that “clip to your clothing” to record conversations and create automatic transcripts could also diminish the future of smartphones.

But, for the time being at least, the threat to Apple and Google remains “Lilliputian”, said The Economist; while there are 15 million smart glasses owners worldwide, Apple is thought to have shifted 250 million iPhones last year alone.