Why would I want an AI agent to replace my phone?

Nowadays you can’t go anywhere on the Internet without encountering AI. In some cases, that’s helpful. AI can do something amazing things. On the other hand, it often feels like we’re watching someone reinvent the wheel. Now, word on the street is that OpenAI wants to build its own phone with an AI agent-based experience. Simply put, I think that sounds horrible.

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OpenAI’s first smartphone apparently it’s in progressset to launch around 2028. The device, says analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, would replace the traditional smartphone experience with one centered around artificial intelligence agents that complete tasks for you. Kuo explained:

Users don’t try to use a bunch of apps. They are trying to accomplish tasks and meet needs over the phone.

There is a bit of truth in that. When we pick up the phone, we’re often trying to do something, whether it’s sending a message, ordering something online, or something else. Besides the fact that we are just as often looking to have fun or consume entertainment, I think this misses the point of what we want from our smartphones.

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The idea that the phone in my pocket exists solely as a tool to accomplish tasks completely undermines the human aspect. This conceptual future where the smartphone is all about AI agents doing things on your behalf just completely eliminates the human experience. Kuo’s conceptual image shows an “agent task flow” that shows the ongoing tasks that the AI agent is handling in the background: booking flights, compiling/summarizing data, composing responses to emails, setting up plans for a family dinner, and displaying the status of a policy renewal. To some extent, I can see myself using an agent in these tasks, although it would be difficult to use the same AI as I just learned to spell “strawberry” to book a flight on my behalf. But for this to be my entire phone experience?

Again, that sounds bad.

All of this means that I don’t want the AI replace my phone. AI agents absolutely have a place in the future of smartphones, and a growing one. But I only see them as a “part”, not the entire experience. Opening Gemini, or the agent of your choice, to view this “task flow” and check the tasks you’ve assigned could be quite useful, but I want my phone to be designed to my choice, my experience, not what works best for the AI agent.

Not long ago, Nothing CEO Carl Pei spoke. about how services and applications will need to be redesigned to serve these agents, and I still think this doesn’t make sense. If we want to have these AI agents, the services and applications must focus on both the human experience and how they talk to AI agents.

The response to this idea around OpenAI’s future smartphone has been all over the place. Many, especially on Twitter/X, are fully committed to this future of a phone that is basically just a physical AI agent. Others are the polar opposite and want a device that doesn’t come close to this vision. I think there is definitely a middle ground, but it will all depend on who is behind it and what their priority is. I’m certainly concerned about this, given how big the technology seems to be. only We care about AI right now, and not much else.

What do you think?

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