Nothing CEO Carl Pei released a video making two big claims: that smartphones are actually the AI gadgets of the future, and that AI may change how we use smartphones. In the video, Pei says, “People love smartphones!” But “the user experience has remained pretty much the same for a long time.” Everything has gotten faster, prettier, and easier, but “the fundamental experience has remained the same,” Pei says. Now, Pei thinks that's about to change.
It's worth noting that Pei was casually mentioning the existence of the Phone 3, which has been rumored for some time and will likely be in stores soon if Nothing follows through on its usual July launch schedule, and which Pei said will be the company's first true AI phone.
In the video, the Nothing team shows off a few demos, one of which appears to be a direct copy of OpenAI's GPT-4o demo: a personalized voice assistant built into the operating system. everyone Here's how Pei envisions the future of smartphones: Another demo shows a personalized, dynamic home screen that combines an app launcher and a news feed. The home screen automatically retrieves and displays QR codes for tickets you'll soon need, fetches content from the web, and displays relevant reminders and weather forecasts. The idea, Pei says, is to think about how AI can move the smartphone from an app-centric model to a system that always knows where the thing you need is.
Pei is careful to say that these are brand new prototypes, and it will take a while to even tinker with the home screen. “We can't just ship a new product and say, 'Look, there are no more apps, will you buy it?'” he says in the video. “Of course you won't.” (I can't prove this is a criticism of Humane or Rabbit, but it certainly is.) Pei says Nothing's job is to bridge the gap from the current system to the next. He also compares Nothing to Nintendo, saying it's not about competing on technology, but just making something fun and good.
It's clear that you haven't been thinking about AI for a while. You recently integrated ChatGPT into your In-Ear headphones, and last year The Verge CastPei told me he's already thinking about a world beyond apps. “We feel like apps have become too powerful,” he said at the time. “With the Phone 2, we're trying to at least give users the choice to take some of that power back.” Last year, that mostly meant reskinning the interface and giving users more notification control, but now it seems to mean AI. “Maybe you'll just tell your phone what it needs to do, and your phone will use those apps even if you don't have the app in the foreground,” he continued.
Speaking of smartphones, Pei has always said that Nothing started out making headphones and smartphones because they are gadgets that everyone actually uses today. “I think that computing devices with large screens and cameras will be the dominant form factor for a long time,” he said last year. He believes that making smartphones is a safer and more competitive business, and the experience of Humane and Rabbit seems to prove him right. But while he was hinting that the next big thing might be on the way, now it seems like it might already be the big thing we have. Just a little different.
