Yes, it is. Artificial Intelligence has been one of the great protagonists of the MWC 2024, recently held in Barcelona. But the brand that has stood out the most at the fair in this particular aspect has been T-Mobile, the mobile network operator owned by Deutsche Telekom, thanks to the presentation of AI Phone, the mobile phone that only works with AI and without applications.
What exactly are we talking about? Well, let's imagine a phone that always knows what we want to do next and proactively helps us accomplish our tasks. That is precisely the objective that Telekom and Brain AI set for themselves to present this prototype to us.
The idea is ambitious. Nothing less than replace the concept of application-based interface that we all know with an AI that naturally processes our requests and generates its own user interface on the fly.
To understand this well, you have to forget about the image of a home screen full of applications, each of them dedicated to a unique and specific purpose. Now, the AI ​​Phone dispenses with all this and, by default, presents us with only one option: a large button through which to interact with the AI ​​assistant.
How Does It Work?
Jerry Yue, the founder of Brain AI, explained the idea to the Mobile World Congress attendees in a very descriptive way. The idea behind the AI ​​Phone is the same one that led to the appearance of Google. Before the arrival of the popular search engine, the Internet worked in a very different way than the one we know today: the user had to know where to go to find things, navigate through the keyword pages on Yahoo... Everything was much less easy than it seemed. is now.
Well, this is more or less what happens today with applications on mobile devices. Their functions are specific, so many times we need to be working with several at the same time. This is not only uncomfortable, but it affects the performance of the mobile.
However the introduction of AI in mobile phones, not as a simple complement, but as an end in itself, can completely revolutionize the way we use our smartphones. The mere fact of finding ourselves with a blank screen with a single button when we start the mobile is already quite shocking. And that is precisely what we see when we take the AI ​​Phone in our hands.
Although the project is dazzling and predicts a fantastic future, everything indicates that there is still a long way to go to achieve everything that the AI ​​Phone proposes. We are before a prototype in its early stages of development.
Some practical examples
In fact, Telekom and Brain AI only showed in Barcelona a few examples of the capabilities of your invention. Few, but amazing. For example, there were several demonstrations of using AI to book a flight with various additional requests about luggage and destination, as shown in the image above. Or to get gift recommendations for a loved one (with direct purchase links available on Amazon, by the way).
Another of the tests carried out before the MWC public was this: the T-Mobile employee asked the mobile phone to generate an image of a dog, then refine it following a series of instructions and finally share it on social networks. The phone created the images and sent them to Facebook and Instagram without anyone touching the phone screen to perform these actions.
It's true that most AI-assisted mobile phones sold today are already capable of doing all this. What really changes is the fact of eliminating the user interface with access to the different applications to carry out the work.
The necessary gradual introduction of AI
Aware of the revolution that a mobile phone with these characteristics can represent for many users, it seems almost decided that the first AI Phone to hit the market will not be one hundred percent dependent on artificial intelligence, but will offer the option of also using the classic applications. The transition must be made carefully.
Thus, waiting for the day to arrive, from the year 2021 Brain AI also offers its artificial intelligence technology as an iPhone app. Note the irony: the app that wants to replace the rest of the apps is camouflaged among hundreds of them in the phone interface.
In the description of the application in the App Store, we see that its functions are quite limited. The overall user rating is quite good (with a score of 4,7), although there are complaints about its excessively slow operation. These are valuable clues for Brain AI and Telekom: there is still a lot of work to do.