Will AI assistants stop people from opening mobile apps?
TL;DR My view: voice is the next way we talk to our devices. For many tasks you will not open an app. You will tell your AI assistant, and it will use the app for you. AI agents reached the web first. Mobile is next: the assistant calls your app, AI runs on the phone, and agents operate apps. I expect an app that an assistant cannot use to be skipped. This is part 1. Part 2 shows how to get…
In this story, the author discusses the growing trend of AI assistants interacting with mobile apps. Voice commands are becoming a new way for users to interact with devices, eliminating the need to manually open and navigate apps. AI agents, which perform tasks on behalf of users, have been present on the web for some time, using tools, services, and pages to complete actions.
However, the mobile space is now starting to see the integration of these agents, with three key indicators pointing towards this direction. First, AI assistants are beginning to call apps directly, as seen with Apple's new Siri and Google's AppFunctions. Second, phones are getting their own AI models, which can run locally on devices, allowing for offline functionality.
Lastly, AI agents are being tested to navigate apps, with Google's Gemini running steps in apps for specific tasks. The author predicts that this shift will be as significant as the introduction of touchscreens, and advises developers to start preparing for this change by identifying the core functions of their apps that could be potentially handled by AI assistants.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
