In science fiction movies we see how mobile phones, almost a sheet of glass, respond to the orders of their users as if they were people. They include artificial intelligence development inside, or the data transmission technology lacks latency, in which case the processing is done elsewhere. Be that as it may, they “think”.
Although we are still far from seeing a Jarvis in our mobile phone, the smartphone market has taken off in terms of the inclusion of AI. Today we find phones capable of performing human tasks in real time , or at least part of them. There is no turning back. In a couple of years there will be a gap: phones with artificial intelligence, and phones without it.
The ‘smartphone’ in five years
The PWC consultancy has been studying the mobile phone market for years. In his publication ‘ The smarter phone ‘ (2018) he outlines the future trend of smartphones . And with it the question “What do we consider intelligent?”.
What do we give category of smart ? We say smart city , smartphone or smart contract when what we mean is “technologically advanced”. If years ago the prefix smart- was earned with an internet connection, touch screens or the inclusion of apps, now that “progress” falls short.
Currently we want voice control like that of Google Assistant . Likewise, we want help from the phone even before we realize we need it. Many terminals already offer connection statuses based on location, and they are also capable of giving mobility offers or responses based on location. “If you take the metro now you get home in 20 minutes.” Does it ring a bell?
We also look for phones that enhance our human capabilities . Something that machines are really better at is processing information, especially if locally (on the phone itself) we have adequate RAM. That’s why some phones, like the Motorola One (below) are able to improve our photos.
Far from being an isolated tool, soon all terminals will have their own artificial intelligence . In the example above, this AI integrated with the three camera sensors is capable of recognizing objects or taking better selfies . They are marking a future trend that is not going to deviate much.
Why on mobile instead of another device?
The truth is that we live surrounded by artificial intelligence. Every time you do a Google search , you use it. Also when you ask the browser to go from point A to point B in the most efficient and fastest way. When you listen to music on YouTube, this platform takes into account your preferences, unless you delete everything to start from scratch .
What these services have in common is Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which manages an unprecedented volume of data. Artificial intelligence needs a huge volume of data to learn . However, once you know something, it’s forever.
So we see AI in all products that use software from this and similar companies. Waymo cars drive themselves thanks to an AI (below), the Watson machine beat Jeopardy because it’s one. The Google Home assistant has a cloud service , as well as some networked TVs.
The thing about phones is that we all carry one with us , all the time.
The AI works so well on the mobile phone because it consists of installing it right next to the data collection. Which is not bad for our privacy : better that they be processed near us than on some server in a country on the other side of the world.
The businesses of the future thanks to mobile AI
As we did at the time with autonomous vehicle technology , we wonder what business can be generated from including artificial intelligence in mobile phones. A 2018 Gartner report titled ’10 Uses for AI-Powered Smartphones ‘ brings up some possible uses:
- Install a digital self in the terminal. This digitized version of ourselves will be able to make autonomous decisions on our behalf.
- User authentication that goes beyond the password, and that includes machine learning and biometrics.
- Recognition of emotions . Wouldn’t it be great if the phone played music according to our mood? Or change it?
- Natural language recognition . Essential to translate in real time.
- Augmented reality and “AI vision” . We already talked about detecting cancer using a mobile , and this is its commercial application.
- Device Manager . Your phone will learn when it needs to go silent, go into airplane mode, or save battery on its own.
- Personal profile of the user . If our insurance company knows that we are calm people who are not involved in accidents, they can make us offers.
The list is missing a couple of points, but the example can be understood. Each one of those listed represents a gigantic business market. It is not surprising that there is a real race to design a terminal with artificial intelligence. As well as adding different tasks to this software.
