The release of the iPhone 17 on Tuesday: What to expect in design, chips, and AI. OpenAI: Owner of ChatGPT invests in AI-made animation and challenges Hollywood to produce more affordably. The mobile device, with a touch screen, has become part of everyone’s daily lives and revolutionized the tech industry. Now, with the advent of artificial intelligence, many top executives from big tech companies believe a new radical shift is underway — one that may one day make the smartphone as we know it obsolete.
Modern AI assistants, much more capable and flexible than the clunky voice assistants like Siri, are about to become the central operating system of all our personal computing devices, overshadowing smartphone software, according to experts. In the future, ‘aware’ glasses or wristbands will become aware of the environment around them, as AI assistants take over tasks like scheduling meetings, creating shopping lists, and taking meeting notes on our behalf, sparing us the need to navigate software menus and type on keyboards.
‘The operating system you’re used to working on your phone and the apps you open, the way you actually do things, will start to fade into the background, and your assistant will be the one getting things done for you,’ explains Alex Katouzian, executive in charge of mobile products at Qualcomm, which manufactures chips for iPhones and Android devices.
And in the near future (not tomorrow), smartphone hardware may even be succeeded — though not replaced — by a new and essential personal computing device. A pair of AI glasses or a wristband, for example, would be aware of the environment around them, and the assistant would start coexisting with us to offer help throughout the day, foresee some industry executives.
The code strikes back: AI is the first digital revolution to affect the tech professionals themselves. Every major tech company is pondering this billion-dollar question: what comes after the smartphone? Here are some predictions from current and former employees of giants like Apple, Google, Samsung Electronics, Amazon, and Meta.
‘Glasses that understand our context by being able to see what we see, hear what we hear, and interact with us throughout the day will become our main computing devices,’ said Mark Zuckerberg in a letter published on Meta’s website. Technologists have been dreaming of digital screen-equipped glasses offering real-time information about the people and places they see for decades. AI assistants would play a central role in this device, allowing the user to ask for help by simply speaking, as if talking to a friend.
Meta took an aggressive step toward this dream last year. A software update for the Meta smart glasses — which include a camera, speakers, and a microphone — brought the Meta AI assistant to the accessory, allowing users to ask about what they were seeing, from animals in zoos to historic landmarks. Last year, the company also unveiled Orion, a prototype of glasses with screens built into the frame — allowing the user, for example, to view digital notes while engaging in a meeting. This year, Google introduced a similar prototype, equipped with its Gemini assistant.
Expectations are that Meta will provide more information about Orion at its developer conference this month. However, in practice, screenless smart glasses — like the Meta smart glasses, which have already sold over two million units — will likely become popular in the next two years, while models with digital displays are still a distant future, evaluated Carolina Milanesi, consumer technology analyst at Creative Strategies.
Battery life is short on devices so thin and small — and the larger the battery, the bulkier and uglier the glasses become, she said. It may also take years for tech companies to learn how to design glasses that fit all face types and still turn a profit.
Ambient computer: ‘If you don’t have to take something out of your pocket, that’s very powerful,’ says Panos Panay, head of devices at Amazon. While we have become increasingly dependent on smartphones, they can be a distraction because we are constantly bombarded with notifications from different apps. Panos Panay, head of devices at Amazon, predicted that AI assistants would increase the importance of ambient computers, which include speakers and screens equipped with microphones spread throughout the home and wearable gadgets — a product category Amazon has been developing for over a decade with the Echo line.
As AI technology makes it possible to have fluid conversations with new assistants, such as Alexa+, which Amazon began rolling out this year, it will enable people to perform certain tasks more easily than using the phone. An example given by Panay in an interview: asking an AI assistant for the answer to a question during a dinner, allowing everyone to stay focused on the conversation without looking at a screen.
He added, however, that the smartphone is here to stay, just as the laptop remains with us long after smartphones became popular. Reimagined smartwatch: ‘Something out of Inspector Gadget, where you flip up the lid. Then you can use the camera for video calls on your wrist,’ describes Carl Pei, CEO of smartphone company Nothing, outlining a future smartwatch camera. In the spring, Pei believed the device of the future would be the smartphone. But with the advancement of AI, he changed his mind. Now, he believes a device collecting information about people’s surroundings while their smartphones are in their pockets is necessary — what he calls ‘the reimagined smartwatch’.
Why? The smartwatch, popularized by the Apple Watch, is familiar. Over 100 million are sold each year. It’s discreet. It stays on the wrist, not the face. And it’s always present. AI would make the operating system of each watch unique. For fitness enthusiasts, it would automatically track their activities. For work-focused entrepreneurs like Pei, it would automate schedules and other tasks.
‘Today, computing is very manual,’ said Pei, adding that having coffee with a friend could involve using three different apps for messaging, calendar, and Yelp reviews. But he said AI agents on a watch would do this automatically in the future. Recorder: ‘It’s a device that enhances our capabilities and frees our minds from biological limitations,’ said Dan Siroker, CEO of Limitless AI, a wearable AI startup that has raised over $33 million from investors, including Sam Altman from OpenAI. Human memory is extremely fallible — studies show that 90% of our memories are forgotten after a week. (Or maybe it was 80%.) What if people could have perfect memory? Startups like Limitless AI, which makes an AI pendant that clips onto clothing to record conversations and create automatic transcriptions, believe that wearable recorders combined with an AI coach will give people extra brainpower to be more effective at work and at home.
This AI assistant, always listening to your conversations, could remind you that you forgot to deliver something you promised a colleague the other day, for example. It may even help you become a better parent. Siroker shared this example: during a trip to an amusement park, his kids asked for more game credits at an arcade, and he gave in. His AI assistant, who was listening, sent a message explaining what he could have said to stand firm.
Privacy concerns may hinder the adoption of AI devices that accompany us everywhere, said Dave Evans, a hardware designer who has worked at Apple and Samsung. Computers always listening, he said, fit best in an office where workers have already given up privacy on employer-monitored computers. He envisioned a series of speakers or screens scattered throughout an office building that would quickly perform tasks for the workers.
‘The reality is that most people don’t have much to do beyond eating, getting dressed, and watching a game. Do you really need your phone or something else to do all these crazy things?’ Evans said. All these wearable device manufacturers are building a future similar to what Bob Ryskamp, a software designer, imagined when working on the Google Glass headset a decade ago. At the time, he envisioned people putting on everyday fashion items like a necklace, a smartwatch, and glasses, which he said were connected by ‘an AI symphony.’ ‘You wear them because you like how they look, and they’re smart,’ said Ryskamp.
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