Beyond the Chatbot: Phone Makers Want to Make AI Your 'Second Brain'

Have you noticed the signs of AI creep? When generative AI first arrived on phones, it took the form of standalone apps or individual features, tools like Google's Circle to Search, for instance. But the rapid growth of AI and the need for a flashy new selling point for the annual churn of new devices means we're seeing AI infiltrate our phones on a deeper and deeper level. Just take one look at Apple Intelligence or Google Gemini. You may be wondering what this actually means for your next phone and the way you interact with it. For some time, big thinkers in tech have outlined a vision for our phones where AI is the central portal through which we interact with our devices. And central to that vision are AI agents, an advanced form of a chatbot that works across all of our apps. The apps themselves drift into the background, with AI — once a nice-to-have novelty — taking center stage. I first saw how this idea could work last year at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where German ... Read full article.