Recently, Apple's revamped Siri encountered another setback, causing significant fluctuations in the company's stock price.

Apple initially intended to unveil new Siri features at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2024, but insiders informed the media that these advancements would now be introduced as early as next year. According to Robby Walker, a senior director at Apple, the delay is attributed to quality issues. The company discovered that the success rate of the new technology hovers between 66% and 80%, implying an error occurs roughly once every three interactions.

This places Apple in an awkward position, particularly after hyping up the new features. At last year's WWDC, Apple showcased some key AI features through a video demonstration, which are pivotal for enhancing Siri's personal assistant capabilities.

In contrast, domestic mobile phone manufacturers seem to be progressing smoothly in implementing AI mobile phones. Huawei, Honor, OPPO, Xiaomi, and other manufacturers have recently introduced the DeepSeek R1 model, bringing fresh ideas to their AI mobile phones. However, is this truly the case? Can the high hopes placed by mobile phone manufacturers on AI mobile phones yield substantial returns?

Or, to revert to a fundamental question: Is the AI mobile phone indeed the future form of mobile phones?

Are AI mobile phones merely a concept created by mobile phone manufacturers?

2024 marked the inaugural year of AI mobile phones. At the beginning of the year, OPPO CEO Chen Mingyong stated that "the era of AI mobile phones will become the third stage of the mobile phone industry after feature phones and smart phones," signaling the commencement of AI mobile phones on the stage. Subsequently, various manufacturers raced to launch new mobile phones, unanimously using AI functions as a selling point and labeling them as "AI mobile phones," attempting to narrate a new story about "AI mobile phones" to consumers.

By the end of the year, OPPO, vivo, Honor, Xiaomi, and Huawei successively unveiled significant AI features, with concepts such as AI agents and AI mobile phone operating systems (AI OS) taking center stage, frequently appearing on the presentations of various manufacturers.

While mobile phone manufacturers spare no effort in promoting AI mobile phones, consumers remain remarkably calm. According to a survey by SellCell, a renowned overseas second-hand trading platform, most users are uninterested in these emerging AI functions on smartphones.

This survey covered 2,000 smartphone users aged 18 and above, half of whom were iPhone users, and the other half were Samsung smartphone users. They experienced Apple Intelligence and Galaxy AI, respectively. The survey results revealed that as high as 73% of Apple Intelligence users and 87% of Galaxy AI users believe that these new features have not brought them much value, with some even feeling they have added almost no value.

The situation is similar in China. Leitech, a self-media outlet, interviewed friends and relatives to gauge their reactions as ordinary consumers to AI mobile phones. When asked, "Will AI be a motivator for you to buy a mobile phone?" Almost all respondents said no, with only one indicating they would consider it but it would hardly become a key factor.

This is actually the paramount issue with current AI mobile phones: the vast majority of users do not perceive any difference in AI mobile phones, or even between AI mobile phones of different brands.

Why? Unlike AI applications born from large models like DeepSeek, ChatGPT, and Sora, while AI mobile phones can achieve some intelligent innovations in functionality through self-developed large models or access to third-party large models, these innovations are almost entirely changes made to the phone's original basic performance, such as camera imaging, battery life, heat dissipation, and communication. In the context of already excessive performance, subtle, partial, and immature changes simply cannot provide users with a profound perception.

For instance, the "AI Eraser" function has a relatively high usage rate on mobile phones, but this function merely offers users some convenience in photo editing after taking pictures. For most users, the presence or absence of this function is insignificant.

Users' inability to perceive the changes brought about by AI mobile phones also determines that the public cannot form a successful cognition of the concept of AI mobile phones. Therefore, to some extent, AI mobile phones are still merely a concept created by mobile phone manufacturers to break the "stalemate" in the smartphone market.

For mobile phone manufacturers, truly implementing this concept on a specific mobile phone and making it a benchmark product for AI mobile phones is the most arduous task.

Mobile phones do not necessitate productivity changes

At last year's WWDC, Apple finally introduced its AI system, "Apple Intelligence." Apple highlighted this collaboration with OpenAI at the conference, which encompasses functions such as a smart assistant, email summaries, photo editing, and automatic translation. However, you may have noticed that these functions are already basic operations on domestic mobile phones that emphasize AI as a selling point.

Currently available AI mobile phones on the market essentially cover AI functions like real-time two-way translation, writing and communication assistance, AI imaging and photo editing, and intelligent voice assistants. However, deploying these diverse AI functions to the latest flagship products and investing heavily in marketing has not garnered the favor of consumers.

On one hand, the so-called AI functions are far from mature and do not meet the requirements of intelligence. On the other hand, AI functions such as document summarization, real-time translation, and article writing are indeed very "high-end" in terms of technology, but in the actual usage of mobile phones, these functions are not frequently utilized. Generally speaking, ordinary users neither have the habit of reading documents, writing reports, or writing articles on their phones nor have many calls that necessitate real-time translation or condensation summaries.

According to SellCell's survey report, the writing tools and notification summary functions in Apple Intelligence have a higher usage rate, while other functions such as priority messages, photo cleanup, and smart replies have average usage rates. Functions like photo natural language search and transcription summaries are rarely attempted by users.

The low usage frequency reveals not only technical issues but also that the value of these AI functions tends to focus on productivity enhancement and providing tools for users, which feels somewhat "forced." Because whether it is a large model or an AI application born from a large model, they are first implemented in PC-based office scenarios and bring about productivity enhancements. AI functions on mobile phones also focus on tools, which seems to imitate the PC side by directly incorporating a plethora of office functions without considering the needs of mobile phone users.

Starting from user needs, should AI mobile phones evolve towards "practicality"? Not really. In the context of stagnating smartphone innovation over the years, users need AI mobile phones to bring them a sense of novelty in experience or greater entertainment.

Last October, Zhao Ming, the former CEO of Honor, used only one command at the conference to automatically order 2,000 cups of coffee through his mobile phone. This function provided a demonstration for the development of AI mobile phones and sparked the public's imagination of AI mobile phones, where in the future, users can complete a series of operations such as beautifying photos, ordering takeout, hailing taxis, and shopping simply by chatting with the mobile phone's smart assistant. This is also why mobile phone manufacturers are creating "AI personal assistants" or "AI agents."

However, this clearly touches upon the unsolvable "App Island" problem in the mobile internet era. To realize system-level AI operations, mobile phone manufacturers need to collaborate deeply with major internet companies behind apps, connect third-party data and permissions, and form a vast AI ecosystem. However, the internet giants behind these super apps are unlikely to agree.

This may also be the most significant limitation facing the future evolution of AI assistants.

If one hardware is insufficient, will the "AI suite" suffice?

Last year, mobile phone manufacturers collectively turned to the arena of AI mobile phones, and this year they have made nearly identical moves—building ecosystems.

Not long ago, Li Jian, CEO of Honor, made his public debut at MWC2025 and officially announced the Honor Alpha strategy. He announced that Honor will transform from a smartphone manufacturer to a globally leading AI terminal ecosystem company; Huawei is also promoting the full integration of AI large model technology into terminal systems, reconstructing HarmonyOS native intelligence centered on AI; Lei Jun also stated that AI technology will be deeply integrated into Xiaomi's various terminal products, offering consumers a more intelligent and convenient user experience.

In simpler terms, mobile phone manufacturers will not only upgrade hardware through this AI technological progress but also touch various terminal products. For mobile phone manufacturers that have successfully built a relatively complete hardware ecosystem, this is naturally not difficult. However, since AI mobile phones have failed to make waves in the market, can the ecological approach bring about change?

It is worth mentioning that other hardware featuring AI as a selling point has indeed demonstrated positive sales momentum. For example, AI PCs. Data from Canalys, a market analysis agency, shows that shipments of AI PCs in the Chinese market grew steadily in 2024, reaching 5.8 million units, accounting for 15% of total PC shipments.

Another example is AI headphones. According to online monitoring data from Runto Technology, sales of traditional mainstream e-commerce market for AI headphones and headsets in China reached 315,000 pairs in 2024, with sales of 340 million yuan, increasing by 260.9% and 405.9%, respectively, year-on-year.

However, these AI hardware products face the same issue as AI mobile phones: AI functions are insufficient to motivate consumers and become a crucial factor influencing consumers' purchasing behavior. A salesperson at a computer store said, "Gamers or professional users who need design, rendering, and editing pay more attention to the processor, memory, graphics card, battery, and other configurations of the computer. Ordinary users will consider cost-effectiveness, and few consumers buy computers based on their AI functions."

Moreover, an awkward situation is that as AI applications continue to bring surprises, there have been popular hits like DeepSeek, which actually weaken the AI capabilities inherent in AI mobile phones or AI PCs. Users can download applications such as DeepSeek and Doubao on their mobile phones or PCs to experience the upgrades brought by AI technology without purchasing AI mobile phones or AI PCs.

In other words, the intelligence brought by current hardware featuring AI as a selling point is highly replaceable. What's more, there is now an intelligent agent, Manus, that may directly disrupt smartphones.

This is no joke. Besides Manus, Humane, an investment of Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, previously released a personal assistant device, AI Pin, shaped like a brooch that adheres to clothing with magnets. It is equipped with large models such as ChatGPT and can interact naturally through voice. Although this product failed, its emergence illustrates that in an era where smartphones monopolize users' attention, there is a market for AI devices that allow users to focus more and be less distracted.

This should perhaps alert mobile phone manufacturers: Does the AI era bring opportunities or crises to smartphones?

Of course, in a unified ecosystem, large model technology also brings new imagination to the interconnection and multimodal interaction between hardware, which may be a significant attraction for consumers. However, the coordination of software and hardware is a hurdle that manufacturers like Huawei, Xiaomi, and Honor, who are more adept at building hardware, must overcome.

From modular mobile phones to foldable screens, screenless mobile phones, and now AI mobile phones, giants have never ceased exploring the future form of smartphones, which is also the fundamental path to emerging from the quagmire of lacking product innovation. The imagination embodied in AI technology may be precisely what smartphones need, but whether it can truly bring transformative power to smartphones and drive them to successfully evolve to the next stage remains uncertain at this juncture.

Dao Zongyouli, formerly known as Waidaodao, is a new media outlet in the internet and technology circle. This article is original, and any form of reprinting without retaining the author's relevant information is prohibited.