I’m currently in the market for a new phone but maybe I should wait and get the next generation of phones. One that is literally generative and specifically optimized for AI.
Fast Company breaks it down:
“In December, Counterpoint Technology Market Research issued a report on GenAI smartphones that described one of their main characteristics as being ‘a subset of AI smartphones that uses generative AI to create original content, rather than just providing preprogrammed responses or performing predefined tasks.’ (In April, it expanded on that definition.)
And in February, Gartner offered its own definition, which says one of the key differentiators of a GenAI phone versus a regular smartphone is that the GenAI phone is ‘capable of locally running a base or fine-tuned AI model that generates new derived versions of content, strategies, designs, and methods.’
Counterpoint’s and Gartner’s definitions differ a little (and are very wordy), but it’s safe to say that a GenAI phone can be considered a smartphone that has at least the four following characteristics:
- Offers generative AI apps and tools, such as AI chatbots and AI image editing and generation apps.
- These tools should be baked into the phone’s operating system wherever possible so they can be used seamlessly system-wide.
- The phones should have CPUs—computer chips—designed specifically for handling complex AI tasks.
- The phones should be powerful enough to run AI models natively on the device instead of needing to send data to the cloud for AI servers to process remotely.
If we use the four points above to define what a GenAI phone is, it becomes evident that as of May 2024, few smartphones can be considered true GenAI phones. That’s because most of the smartphones available today don’t have chips designed specifically to handle complex AI tasks.
And while many smartphones today can run, for example, the ChatGPT app, that doesn’t make them GenAI phones since when you use the ChatGPT app on your smartphone, your queries aren’t being processed locally on the device itself. Instead, whatever you type into the ChatGPT app is being sent off to OpenAI’s servers to be processed remotely. Likewise, just because you’ve downloaded a generative AI photo app doesn’t mean you have a GenAI phone since remote servers usually do the image generation.”
In the past new phones were deritative. Only changing slightly from version to version. Now they’ll be generative, capable of generating new content thanks to their all AI focus.
Is a GenAI phone the Greatest Idea Ever?
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