Nobody talkin’ about an AI smartphone revolution

As is their tradition at this time of year, Apple announced a new line of iPhones last week. The promised centrepiece that would make us want to buy these new devices was AI – or Apple Intelligence, as they branded it. Yet the reaction from the collective world of consumer technology has been muted.

The lack of enthusiasm from consumers was so evident it immediately wiped over a hundred billion dollars off Apple’s share price. Even the Wired Gadget Lab podcast, enthusiasts of all new things tech, found nothing in the new capabilities that would make them want to upgrade to the iPhone 16.

The only thing that did seem to generate some excitement was not the AI features, but the addition of a new camera shutter button on the side of the phone. If a button is a better selling point than the most hyped technology of the past couple of years, something is clearly amiss.

The reason is that AI has now passed what tech blog The Media Copilot called its “wonderment phase.” Two years ago, we were amazed that ChatGPT, DALL-E and other generative AI systems were able to create coherent writing and realistic images from just a few words in a text prompt.

But now, AI needs to show that it can actually be productive. Since their introduction, the models driving these experiences have become much more powerful – and exponentially more expensive.

Nevertheless, Google, NVidia, Microsoft and OpenAI recently met at the White House to discuss AI infrastructure, suggesting these companies are doubling down on the technology.

According to Forbes, the industry is US$500 billion short of making back the massive investments in AI hardware and software, and the $100 billion in AI revenue projected to be made in 2024 is not even close to this