Nothing's CEO, Carl Pei, states that AI agents will soon take the place of your applications.

      Carl Pei believes your smartphone is trapped in 2005, and that AI offers the solution.

      Nothing's CEO, Carl Pei, asserts that the current smartphones are hardly different from the Palm Pilots and PDAs from two decades ago. We're still encountering the same lock screens, home screens, app stores, and full-screen app experiences.

      Pei contends that the industry has stagnated for 20 years, and he's convinced that AI is the key to moving forward. Speaking at SXSW, he boldly claimed that apps are on the verge of becoming obsolete—not immediately, but the trend is evident, and entrepreneurs need to take note.

      Will your apps become out of date in the future?

      Pei's argument begins with a straightforward and relatable scenario. If you want to meet a friend for coffee, it involves using a messaging app, Maps, Uber, and your calendar—four apps and multiple steps just for one cup of coffee. “It’s very difficult to accomplish tasks on a phone,” he remarked at SXSW.

      His vision for the future includes a device that eliminates the need for such steps. “I know you extremely well, and if I understand your intention, I just take care of it for you,” is how he envisions the ideal smartphone of the future.

      So, what does Carl Pei foresee as the next step?

      Pei outlines the evolution of AI in phases. The first phase involves AI executing tasks on your behalf, like booking a flight or hotel. This aligns with what Google and Samsung are experimenting with through their smartphones with Gemini integration. He referred to this phase as “super boring.”

      The subsequent phase is more intriguing. Here, AI understands your long-term objectives and nudges you toward them over time, functioning more like a proactive life assistant than a responsive tool. The most advanced phase is when the system presents ideas you never even thought to request. “When the system understands us intimately, it will generate ideas we didn’t even know we wanted,” Pei explained.

      For this to be effective, the interface must evolve. Pei emphasizes that AI agents should not mechanically navigate through menus as if pretending to be human. “You need to develop an interface for the agent to operate through,” he said.

      Additionally, he believes that voice will become the primary input method, though the display will remain the main output. “The interface I truly support is voice input, as speaking is the easiest way to input something. And while the output isn’t audio, it still relies on a screen. I think that’s the most efficient user interface.”

      I find many of Carl Pei's ideas compelling, yet I maintain that a genuinely helpful AI assistant is still years away. Companies like Rabbit, Humane, and even Apple have struggled to create a functional AI assistant. Hopefully, a rapidly advancing company like Nothing can find the solution.