Gartner predicts that over 80% of smartphones will have AI by 2020

Over the past year, artificial intelligence has played a much more important role in smartphones. Whether it’s the Google Assistant we ask when we’re lost, or the social feeds we check every day, AI is finding a home all around us. But what do market experts think about its impact in the near future?

Gartner AI Research

Even hardware manufacturers have decided to adopt this technology and incorporate AI capabilities into their devices to optimize and improve the user experience. Gartner’s latest research notes that this is just the beginning, with AI set to become a “key product differentiator for smartphone vendors” in the coming years .

Gartner predicts that by 2022, 80% of smartphones shipped will have on-device AI capabilities, which will help phone manufacturers attract and retain customers in the future. Currently, that percentage is only 10% and limited to premium phones like Huawei’s Mate 10 Pro and Google Pixel 2. CK Lu, research director at Gartner, continued on the same note:

Future AI capabilities will allow smartphones to learn, plan, and solve user problems. This aims not only to make smartphones smarter, but also to enhance humans by reducing cognitive load. However, AI capabilities in smartphones are still in a very early stage.

The research report then delves into specific use cases for AI that will have a significant impact on smartphone user experience over the next four to five years. We are already witnessing quite a few of them being applied in the current scenario, but at a fairly niche level. However, future smartphones are expected to combine two or more AI features to provide an advanced and extremely smooth experience on smartphones and mobile devices .

Expected advances in AI

Consider the example of natural language recognition or augmented reality. Both of these technologies are gaining interest and improving by the day, and we are on the brink of breakthroughs. Now, fast forward four years and what do we see?

Instead of answering questions with the hated “I don’t know,” your smartphone will go one step ahead and intuitively help you based on the clues it collects . For example, you may be asked to order a jacket if the temperature suddenly drops. AR technology will become more widely available in the future and will be used for even more useful applications, such as collecting user data and detecting diseases.

Another popular AI application is the one seen on the Google Pixel 2 device, which has garnered a lot of praise from across the tech community. Yes, you guessed it correctly. It’s your personal photos that benefit from AI and automatically display beautiful, high-quality photos of yourself . According to Gartner, this technology will be further improved by future advances in AI.

Additionally, there are two use cases that stood out to me from the research report. AI is expected to be useful in personal profiling and content censorship in the coming years.

Here, the former means that AI can automatically detect your behavioral patterns and personal activities to build intelligent profiles that help you adapt based on your environment . The latter, on the other hand, helps the assistant improve as he approaches the level of smartness of Jarvis, played by Tony Stark. The continuous listening feature is useful in the following ways:

For example, if your smartphone hears you snoring, it will activate your wristband to prompt you to change your sleeping position.

So, simply put, Gartner’s research confirms that the presence of AI will only increase in our lives and will be at the center of technological development in the coming years.

And we may end up spending most of our time with an AI assistant that knows what we’re doing and what’s going to happen next . This scenario could be similar to the Hollywood movie “Her” and will definitely be exciting to at least some people. Are you ready to welcome the flood of AI-based innovation? Yes, it is.