Carl Pei, co-founder and CEO of Nothing, believes in the future smartphone will be a device powered by AI agents, not running apps.

The founder of the British consumer electronics company that develops smartphones and other accessories made these comments during an interview at the SXSW conference.

In terms of AI in software, I think people should understand that apps are going to disappear,

So, if you’re a founder or a startup and your app is like where the core value lies, that will be disrupted whether you like it or not.

The company is pitching the idea for some time now about a new kind of smartphone using AI and personalization technology accurate enough so its users won’t feel they have to double-check its output.

Some companies already implemented AI features that can execute a command on the users’ behalf, like booking flights or hotels. However Pei believes the AI could begin to learn a user’s intentions long-term. For example, if you wanted to be healthier, the device could give you nudges to help you accomplish your goals.

I think it gets even more powerful when it starts surfacing suggestions for you; you don’t have to manually come up with an idea…when the system knows us so well, it will come up with things that we don’t even [know] we wanted,

Pei explained.

Pei believes AI-first smartphone would do things for its users without needing to be commanded to. This would mean a device with an interface designed for the AI agent to use.

Despite this Pei doesn’t think apps are going away in the near future, but over time the AI will use the “app” in a frictionless way, not mimicking human touch on the smartphones by moving through menus and tapping options.

That’s not the future. The future is not the agent using a human interface. You need to create an interface for the agent to use. I think that’s the more future-proof way of doing it.

Image: TechCrunch. (2019). TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 – Day 3 Carl Pei (cropped). Wikimedia Commons