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This year has been a very big year for AI on phones. Whether we’re talking about Galaxy AI, Apple Intelligence, Gemini’s multitude of upgrades or something else entirely, it’s felt that hardly a day goes by without some phone company executive singing the praises of AI and what it can do.
It’s not like this trend came out of nowhere, either. Google has been hyping AI and machine learning for several years now, and ChatGPT launched and kicked the AI discussion into the mainstream over two years ago. It was only a matter of time before AI became more or less ubiquitous on phones.
It just so happens that this year was also the year when I confirmed I do not care about whether my personal phone has AI or not.
AI precursors never interested me either
It’s not as though this attitude of mine has come out of nowhere. I’ve avoided a lot of similar features on my phone for a long time. I’m not talking about AI features that work behind the scenes automatically, like photo processing algorithms or other kinds of machine learning. I mean virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. The absolute most I’ve ever used these tools for is setting a timer when cooking and my hands are occupied.
There’s a big difference in the functionality on offer from AI chatbots and virtual assistants. But it’s never been what they can do that’s put me off, it’s the fact that I generally prefer to do those tasks myself. Whether you’re asking for information or controlling one of the functions on your phone, it doesn’t take that much longer to do the job yourself, even if it means having to unlock your phone first.
An argument could be made for getting stuff done when your phone isn’t in your hands, or if your hands are full. But considering I’m generally glued to my phone, it’s rare that I can’t grab it and unlock the screen in less than a second. As for the times where that’s not possible I tend to just… wait. It usually doesn’t take too long to get a free hand, and I’m not so addicted to my phone that I can’t hold it off for a few minutes.
At this point I’m so accustomed to using my phone the way they were originally designed to be made, that I’ve had no real interest in changing. Douglas Adams once claimed that 35 is the turning point when you start to consider new technology as “against the natural order of things”. Since I’m only 33, it seems I’ve beaten that milestone by a couple of years. It makes me wonder what’s going to happen once I actually hit my 35th birthday, and how much grumpier I’ll become.
Even when it comes to finding information about topics I don’t understand, I still prefer to use traditional search engines to find the resources I need. No asking ChatGPT or Gemini for information and summaries. Initially that was due to a lack of trust, and not wanting to fall pretty to accidental misinformation, but even as those ‘bots have improved, my apathy about using them has remained pretty firm.
AI doesn’t offer anything I want
There are a bunch of reasons why I find it hard to get enthusiastic about AI on my phone. Part of it certainly comes down to the fact that phone makers are bombarding us with so many new features all the time, that it becomes impossible to keep up with everything.
My regular day-to-day phone is the Pixel 9 Pro, which has so much AI packed into it that I couldn’t even list half of it off the top of my head — and that’s before you account for the free year of Gemini Advanced. I’ve used that subscription once so far, and that was only to make sure it was actually working.
Could I learn to remember all the features? Sure, but so far I haven’t really been given much of a reason to bother with it. Of all the features that are on offer on Android phones, the only active AI-centric functionality I have much interest in is the photo editing software. Magic Editor, Photo Unblur and so on. But that interest still isn’t very high, and it’s certainly not high enough to make me actively use those features on a regular basis. To be perfectly honest, I usually just forget they’re there until something else jogs my memory.
I also don’t seem to be alone here. Recently I heard about a survey that polled iPhone and Samsung users on the merits of AI. 73% of iPhone users and 87% of Samsung users said that AI doesn’t add much value to their smartphone experience. The poll asked a lot of things related to AI and users’ personal feelings on the technology, and overall it doesn’t seem like people are that interested in it.
73% of iPhone users and 87% of Samsung users said that AI doesn’t add much value to their smartphone experience.
Sellcell poll
Then again, apparently 47.6% of iPhone users polled said that AI was “very” or “somewhat” important factor when buying a new phone — compared to 23.7% of Samsung owners. Only 16.8% of iPhone owners would swap to Samsung for better AI, though. So clearly some of them care about AI, but not enough to override their existing brand loyalty.
As much as tech and phone companies are publicly expressing the wonders of AI for the user experience, I’m just not feeling that it’s genuine. Frankly it all seems more like a cynical exercise in appeasing shareholders who are caught up in AI as the latest craze or gimmick — with focus on share prices rather than what’s actually going to work for the consumer.
I don’t know about everyone else, but for me that’s reflected in the fact phone companies haven’t offered a good enough reason to care about their AI features. I’ve never had a problem writing emails or text messages, so I don’t need a machine to give me pointers or rewrites. Similarly I don’t get enough notifications to justify needing to see a summary. Much like all the emails I get sent, I can usually tell at a glance whether or not it’ll be worth my time and act accordingly.
The AI system may be cutting out some of the steps in the middle, but for the most part it’s not going to actually save me any time or effort in the process. So why bother with it at all?
Bottom line
Let me be very clear here. I am not saying that phones should not have AI. All I’m saying is that what’s on offer right now is not capturing my attention. It’s just not that interesting for me, and certainly not the kind of thing that would change the way I buy phones. There are a bunch of reasons why I opted for the Pixel 9 Pro as my personal phone right now, but Gemini AI is not among them.
The good news is that while AI features have been taking the center stage, phone companies aren’t neglecting everything else to make it happen. Generally speaking phones are getting more powerful, lasting longer on a single charge, and improving the photos they take — among a myriad of other things.
And sure, I can appreciate the irony in the fact AI has been employed to aid that process. I can get behind that quite easily, but that doesn’t mean I have to like all the AI features that feel like they’re being stuffed into a phone for the sake of it.
