Smartphones Are in for a Rebirth — and So Is Everything Else
Seven years ago, I resigned from a bank ranked #60 in the world. The reason? The chatbot epidemic.
At one conference, the bank’s CEO predicted that in the future, applications would vanish and be replaced by chatbots. This sparked a frenzy among IT departments: everyone rushed to release their own versions of chatbots, eager to cash in on the hype and demonstrate innovation to upper management.
The project I was working on — a service desk for 400,000 bank employees — was also transformed into a chatbot in an experimental phase. The original design handled around 9,000 different tasks through a request interface, ranging from issuing tax certificates to relocating an office. However, chatbots proved to be an unsuitable solution for such complex requests. We attempted to implement compromise solutions, but the outcome left everyone dissatisfied: the client was disappointed by the lack of a fully functional chatbot, while users struggled with the new interface’s inconveniences.
Recently, updates for iOS and Android were released, but they brought disappointingly weak AI features and minimal improvements to user experience. For instance, an enhanced Siri or Google’s selfie function is hardly what one expects with a new OS version.
Meanwhile, in a parallel world, fundamental changes are occurring.
“ChatGPT introduces a new paradigm not seen in 60 years: the user no longer tells the computer what to do; the user tells the computer what result they want,” stated Jakob Nielsen
In an interview, Sam Altman discussed the stages of AI development and suggested that the next (third) stage involves AI agents. AI can take proactive actions, working autonomously to achieve goals set by the user.
I believe this is exactly what can “make our smartphones great again.”
I began my story with my resignation from the bank because everyone had gone mad over chatbots. They were close to a solution but couldn’t see the forest for the trees. The future of interfaces doesn’t lie in communication methods or chatbots. A conversational interface is merely one way to convey to a system what you want from it — and, by the way, it’s far from the most user-friendly method. Anyone who has edited text or code in a dialog mode knows exactly what I mean.
This paradigm shift that Jakob Nielsen spoke of must also affect and transform our smartphones. Of course, it’s not just about smartphones, but since nearly every person on the planet owns one, it’s interesting to discuss them specifically.
Kai-Fu Lee, a Chinese AI guru, remarked on the challenges of AI development, saying, “For consumers, today’s smartphone model is likely to disappear.”
Perhaps he meant that smartphones will be reborn into something being attempted by the founders of companies like Humane or Augen, who are creating new ways to interact with AI.
Or perhaps it means that smartphones will no longer be collections of applications, of which you regularly use about 10 while the other 200 sit dormant.
Currently, apps mostly provide us with tools to tackle our tasks but do not resolve them.
For example, I recently searched for an ergonomic mouse because my wrist started hurting from constant laptop use. Marketplaces kindly presented me with hundreds of options from various sellers with different delivery options. In the end, I found that the solution to my problem was a soft wrist cushion that better met my needs (and cost significantly less). In the near future, my AI agent will handle all this.
For retailers, this means I won’t spend hours sifting through product listings, reading reviews, and comparing delivery conditions. There will be no upselling at checkout, nor an increase in average order value through neuro-design approaches. This indicates that e-commerce, in its current form, will disappear.
What will it evolve into? A database for my agent? Or another agent selling to my agent using hacks in prompts?
Who needs a fasting app if an agent can do that, especially when it’s cross-platform by design? Why develop a UI for a music player if it’s only being viewed by an AI bot?
Ultimately, today’s app developers are unlikely to survive in this new world. There’s hope for those creating “hardware” capable of generating data for agents or for those possessing unique algorithms, like calculating the ideal training moment for niche sports. But even these developments can be rapidly reproduced or enhanced by AI agents.
This also means that the profession of UI designer will undergo significant changes. Finally, the tedious task of creating yet another UI kit for your latest fintech project will become a thing of the past. Why bother if there won’t be an interface? Brand identity will shift to a different level.
The profession of conversational designer may become more widespread, or perhaps it will become an essential skill.
UX design will likely also shift towards a more product-oriented approach, meaning less focus on prototypes and wireframes and more on solving problems.
I understand that the routine tasks we engage in today will decrease: for example, linking screens will clearly be handled by AI agents. However, as history shows, routine will emerge elsewhere. Perhaps it will involve scenario development (and AI agents will undoubtedly allow for more thorough and high-quality scenarios) or goal iterations… I don’t know.
But I do know one thing: we live in very interesting times, and I can’t wait for my smartphone (if that’s what it’ll still be called) to become not just my tool but my assistant.