AI-First Devices: Can They Replace the iPhone?

The smartphone has been the centerpiece of non-public know-how for practically 20 years, shaping the best way we work, talk and devour data — however that reign could also be  coming to an finish. As synthetic intelligence quickly makes its means into on a regular basis life, early indicators recommend a brand new type of machine is on the horizon. Instead of the acquainted glass touchscreen and apps, the subsequent period of sensible tech will seemingly favor one thing extra hands-free and intuitive, in a position to mix seamlessly into our every day routines.

Major tech corporations like OpenAI, Meta, Amazon and Google are investing billions within the race to design the subsequent breakthrough type issue, understanding full properly that whoever pulls it off might obtain the identical degree of dominance Apple has loved with the iPhone — and really seemingly reap massive financial rewards. Ideas vary from sensible glasses and earbuds to neural implants and digital tattoos.The large query now’s whether or not any of those AI-native devices will really dethrone the smartphone, or in the event that they’ll merely be relegated to the scrap heap alongside previous failed makes an attempt. 

 

What’s Wrong With the Smartphone?

Forecasters have been predicting the “death of the smartphone” for the reason that early 2000s, years earlier than the iPhone even hit the market. Back then, they envisioned a future the place everybody had BlackBerrys and stylus-wielding Palm Pilots of their again pockets. Instead now we have skinny slabs of glass and metallic — a design that has reigned supreme for greater than 20 years, with Apple claiming a giant chunk of the market, celebrating its three billionth iPhone sold in July 2025. These doom cycles pop up frequently however not often final lengthy, often revealing themselves to be an overhyped advertising and marketing marketing campaign conveniently tied to some new, “revolutionary” product that may “change everything as we know it.”

But this time feels totally different: The smartphone market has plateaued, which isn’t such a bad thing. After a pandemic-induced droop, adopted by an underwhelming rebound, gross sales have been 19 percent lower in 2024 than they have been in 2017. Incremental upgrades not excite customers, who’re holding onto their gadgets a lot longer than earlier than and increasingly turning to refurbished alternatives as a substitute of shopping for new. More importantly, the traditional smartphone design is falling out of step with the fast evolution of AI. 

Without a doubt, smartphones stay unmatched as all-purpose gadgets But in the case of absolutely harnessing the total capabilities of synthetic intelligence, they’re fairly restricted. Voice instructions, hand gestures and ambient computing that anticipates consumer intent are much better suited to AI’s strengths, but they’re being compelled into inflexible channels like apps and interfaces made completely for contact — a problem specialists name the “AI body problem.” AI’s potential lies in its capacity to facilitate extra pure, intuitive interactions; it’s constructed on programs which can be inherently probabilistic and adaptive. And gadgets like smartphones and laptops aren’t designed to deal with that. 

For now, the smartphone nonetheless reigns. But a brand new era of AI-native gadgets might be coming for the throne.

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The Push for AI-Native Devices

The subsequent wave of AI-native tech is already taking form with OpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Jony Ive’s startup, io. Ive, the former chief design officer at Apple, is accountable for among the firm’s most iconic designs, from the translucent, colorfully-backed iMac of the ‘90s to today’s gold-standard iPhone. Now, he’s tasked with imagining the subsequent generation-defining machine, very like he’s executed up to now. 

Ive and OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman are positioning their collaboration as step one to creating a completely new household of {hardware}, gadgets constructed from the bottom as much as align with how AI works, quite than simply incremental upgrades to current telephones. And they’re not alone. Meta is working to make sensible glasses a factor once more after years of years of false begins from each itself and Google, who can also be making another run at it. And Amazon is exploring a clip-on machine that may be worn like a pendant.

Ousting the smartphone with an AI-centric machine isn’t a brand new idea, however latest makes an attempt present simply how troublesome the problem actually is. 

Humane’s AI Pin, which launched in late 2023, was touted as a screen-free wearable that would challenge data onto the palm of your hand. But it was tormented by overheating points, an illegible greenlit laser projector and a near-total lack of integration with on a regular basis apps — no Google Maps, no WhatsApp, no Spotify — leaving the techie brooch feeling extra like a demo than a every day companion. Early customers discovered it to be a cumbersome and “annoying” machine with sluggish responses, inconsistent outputs and “a UX disaster” that could only be relied upon to tell the time. Youtube reviewer Marques Brownlee called it “the worst product I’ve ever reviewed.” The steep $699 price ticket paired with a $24 month-to-month subscription didn’t assist both. 

Another cautionary story is Rabbit’s R1, a vibrant orange, pocket-sized handheld machine launched in early 2024. It was marketed as an “AI assistant,” able to performing duties in response to pure language cues, however its $199 price ticket shortly misplaced enchantment, with Wired labeling it “one of the biggest flops” of the 12 months. Reviews highlighted its dependence on cloud connectivity, frequent crashes and a complicated premise to start with: Why carry a separate machine to do issues your smartphone already handles? Rabbit additionally leaned on partnerships with third-party apps, however many have been restricted or non-functional at launch, making the R1 much more pointless.

Without reliability, velocity or pure assimilation into our on a regular basis tech-dependent routines, any AI-native machine that hits the market will seemingly be doomed to novelty standing. Many have tried to succeed, but it surely stays to be seen whether or not anybody can create one thing that delivers what the smartphone can’t.

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What Kinds of Devices Are in Development?

Here are just a few of the newest on AI-native gadgets tech corporations have within the works.

OpenAI’s Mystery Device

Backed by over $1 billion in funding from SoftBank, OpenAI and Ive’s design studio LoveForm are reportedly creating a pocket-sized, screenless machine. The gadget will run on OpenAI’s fashions, utilizing voice and ambient interplay as a substitute of conventional shows. CEO Sam Altman described the context-aware, hands-free companion as a third core gadget (serving as extra of a complement to laptops and smartphones quite than any kind of substitute), and an try and rethink human-computer interplay for the AI period in the identical means the iPhone redefined cell computing. 

While we don’t know rather more in regards to the thriller machine, experiences recommend it’ll embrace pure supplies and minimal interfaces, with hypothesis that the product might debut as early as 2026. “It’s so beautiful,” Altman teased, “a case would be a crime.”

Meta’s Orion AR Glasses

Meta is doubling down on augmented actuality glasses because the fittest type issue for AI, with Orion serving as its flagship prototype. The light-weight, wi-fi system weighs simply 100 grams, mixing cyber-physical worlds by eye-tracking, hand- and room-tracking cameras, microphones, audio system and Wi-Fi connectivity. It’s paired with a compact EMG wristband that senses refined muscle indicators to allow hands-free gestures and haptic suggestions. A separate “compute puck,” designed to slide into your pocket or bag, takes on the processing workload, whereas its lenses provide a 70-degree discipline of view with silicon-carbide optics and micro-LED projectors, remaining clear so others can nonetheless see the wearer’s eyes and expressions. 

Running Meta AI, Orion can establish objects, recommend actions, handle video calls and juggle a number of AR apps concurrently, from holographic projections to blended actuality. It’ll stay a developer-only prototype in 2026, however may also act as a stepping stone to a extra refined consumer-ready mannequin — codenamed Artemis — slated for a 2027 launch, with pricing anticipated to align with high-end smartphones and laptops.

Amazon’s Bee AI Wearable

Amazon recently acquired Bee, a startup behind a palm-sized wearable AI machine that data and transcribes conversations in actual time, producing context-aware summaries, reminders and motion gadgets. Priced at $49.99, the machine options twin microphones with noise filtering, a modular, discreet design that may be worn as a wristband, clip or pendant and a battery lifetime of as much as seven days. Bee integrates with calendars, activity managers and different apps whereas supporting as much as 40 languages. 

Beyond Bee, Amazon has rolled out its AI-software suite of Nova models, AI-accelerator Trainium chips, a shopping chatbot and Bedrock, a market for third-party AI fashions. This comes after the discontinuation of its Halo well being tracker, although Echo smart glasses stay a part of the lineup. Additionally, virtual assistant Alexa and Ring video doorbells have each acquired main AI overhauls.

Apple’s AI Hardware Strategy

Apple is reportedly retooling its gadgets to place AI at their core, with plans to weave superior AI capabilities throughout its whole machine lineup. As CEO Tim Cook explained, “We are embedding it across our devices and platforms and across the company,” calling AI “one of the most profound technologies of our lifetime.” This shift contains extra succesful Siri — now drawing on Apple Intelligence to supply richer language understanding, visible intelligence instruments like Live Translation, Image Playground and ChatGPT integration — and hints at upcoming AI-powered {hardware}. Apple can also be doubling down on the infrastructure wanted to assist it, investing in a 250,000 square foot AI server factory in Houston, set to open by 2026, and increasing on-device processing with personal cloud compute. 

Cook is aware of they gained’t be first to construct an AI-native machine. But then once more they by no means have been first at something. As he pointed out in a recent company-wide meeting, there was a PC earlier than the Mac, MP3 gamers earlier than the iPod and a smartphone earlier than the iPhone. And if there’s a option to speed up — such as an acquisition — they’ll do it. “This is sort of ours to grab.”

Google’s Gemini-Powered Devices

Google is embedding its household of Gemini multimodal AI fashions — able to dealing with textual content, code, photos, audio and video — into its {hardware} ecosystem. At its 2025 “Made by Google” showcase, the corporate unveiled Gemini for Home, a next-generation assistant that replaces Google Assistant on Nest audio system and sensible shows, bringing real-time reasoning, richer language understanding and knowledgeable recommendation by Gemini Live. The firm additionally introduced that it’s creating new Android XR glasses that can be utilized to message pals, provide turn-by-turn instructions and provide subtitles to conversations in real-time.

Google isn’t abandoning the smartphone altogether, although. Its Pixel 10 series and Pixel Watch 4 each depend on Gemini 2.0 fashions paired with the Tensor G5 chip to ship options like dwell translation, anticipatory “Magic Cues” and long-context reminiscence. Lighter workloads are dealt with by the Flash-Lite variant, whereas Pro powers extra superior reasoning and coding duties straight on-device.

Gemini can also be accessible by Google AI Studio and Vertex AI, letting builders construct on the identical fashions that energy client gadgets. The transfer hints at Google’s broader objective of tying its {hardware} and software program collectively by Gemini, creating one AI spine that runs throughout every little thing from telephones and office instruments to sensible automobiles and TVs.

Neuralink’s Brain-Computer Implant

Neuralink takes a extra invasive strategy to AI-native gadgets than most different corporations, making a brain-computer interface (BCI) that have to be surgically implanted beneath an individual’s cranium. The coin-sized chip (generally known as the N1 Implant, or “Link”) is designed to faucet into the thoughts’s motor management areas, permitting customers to function computer systems and cell gadgets with nothing greater than their ideas.

This know-how remains to be within the early experimental phases, with scientific trials involving human sufferers underway now. For now, it’s primarily being touted as a means to assist folks with neurological illnesses or mobility points. But founder Elon Musk thinks it might finally be used to allow a extra seamless interface between people and AI, the place persons are in a position to management the gadgets round them with out lifting a finger and even talking.

Emanuelis Norbutas, chief know-how officer at Nexos.ai, sees BCIs like those being made at Neuralink and elsewhere as the one true successor to smartphones. “Until the day a brain-computer interface actually works and people are ready to use it,” he advised Built In, “we’ll still be carrying touchscreens in our pockets.”

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What Would It Take to Actually Replace the Smartphone?

Displacing the smartphone isn’t nearly implementing AI — it’s about making one thing so good that we’re prepared to desert the beloved, all-purpose glass bricks completely, which is not any small feat. 

To pull it off, the machine would wish to clear a number of hurdles. For starters, becoming a long-lasting battery into a light-weight wearable is much from trivial; sensible wearables that may energy real-time AI with out working sizzling or dying after an hour merely don’t exist but. Connectivity poses one other problem, since folks count on gadgets to be always-on and seamlessly tied into the identical messaging, maps, funds and media they already use. Even if the {hardware} will get there, the economics stay steep. Building one thing highly effective sufficient to rival the smartphone dangers pushing it into luxurious pricing, properly out of attain for mass adoption. 

Layered beneath all of this are privateness considerations. The concept of a tool that consistently listens, tracks eye motion or learns your physique language over time is already unsettling to many customers (and should even be illegal). Let alone one which’s implanted into your mind. And that’s earlier than even touching probably the most immovable impediment of all: the entrenched ecosystem of apps, builders and consumer habits that has been constructed round smartphones for practically 20 years.

“From my cold, dead hands will you get my smartphone,” Keith Shaw, host of Today in Tech, paraphrased a broadly shared sentiment in conversation with International Data Corporation analyst Ramon Llamas.

“Whatever that alternative device is going to be … it also has to bring to the table something you just can’t have on a smartphone,” Llamas mentioned. “Otherwise there’s no sense in having that.” 

That’s why many specialists consider that the subsequent large tech leap gained’t come from stacking options on high of what we have already got, however from eradicating friction — earbuds that may translate conversations in real-time, for instance, or glasses that supply turn-by-turn instructions. Selin Dursun, inventive technologist at Samsung, doesn’t see the smartphone’s substitute as one thing you pin and overlook. “It will be something so seamlessly present, you barely notice it; yet it understands you completely,” he advised Built In. An ambient AI system that lives in your ear, your property and your automotive, anticipating your intent with out you ever needing to faucet a display. The “interface” will fade, and the “OS” might disappear altogether.

“Long story short, I think new AI devices won’t replace the phone,” Dursun mentioned, “it’ll replace the need to reach for one.”

Still, the know-how isn’t there but. Glasses, earbuds and watches buckle beneath battery limits and nonetheless rely closely on the smartphone for each computing energy and connectivity. As a lot as pioneering builders would possibly attempt, no machine has managed to cross the brink from neat prototype to crucial every day companion. 

So, except and till AI-native gadgets are in a position to stand completely on their very own — with velocity, reliability and a transparent motive to exist — the smartphone will seemingly keep on the middle of the tech universe.