Qualcomm CEO: AI Agents Will Replace Smartphones as Digital Life's Center

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon in an interview told CNBC that the company is working on more than 40 designs for its new AI-powered devices, ranging from smart-glasses to wearable pins and earbuds with cameras. Amon said that these devices will usher in a new era of ‘agents’ which are intelligent assistants capable of carrying out complex tasks across apps and services. Amon further explained that the AI agents will fundamentally change how consumers interact with smartphones. Instead of manually navigating apps, agents will handles tasks directly. For instance, an agent could instantly retrieve banking transactions without requiring users to open or search within an app. “Apps are not dead,” Amon said, “but apps are going to change. Those agents are going to be the new app.”

Smartphones no longer the center

As per Amon, AI agents will become the new centre of digital life, shifting the “center of gravity” away from smartphones. While phones won’t disappear, they will increasingly serve as endpoints for agents rather than the primary hub. This shift could open opportunities for new device categories, particularly smart glasses, which Amon believes could rival smartphones in scale. Amon said shipments of smart glasses are already in the tens of millions annually and could reach hundreds of millions within a few years, potentially becoming as big as smartphones. Companies like Meta and Samsung are developing smart glasses with built-in cameras, while AI firms such as OpenAI are entering hardware through acquisitions like Jony Ive’s startup io.

Data and chip innovation

Amon also stressed that new AI devices will generate exponentially more data than current smartphones, fueling future AI model training and personalised experiences. To support this, Qualcomm is overhauling its chip roadmap to deliver more powerful and energy-efficient processors for smaller, wearable form factors. “Our entire roadmap is in a process of upgrade right now,” Amon said, underscoring the scale of the transformation.

Qualcomm CEO on who will win AI device race

Earlier this year, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon predicted the winner of the AI device race. At a time when tech titans like Meta (AI Glasses), Google (AI Glasses + ecosystem), Apple (contextually aware personal assistant and Apple Intelligence) OpenAI (not disclosed) and Amazon (Alexa+) are developing consumer-centric devices to integrate AI technology, Amon suggests that the ultimate winner won't be decided by who has the biggest data center but by who is closest to the user. During an interview at the World Economic Forum at the Qualcomm space in Davos recently, Amon addressed the intensifying hardware race by framing the competition through Edge Computing. When pressed to name a specific frontrunner among the Big Tech players, Amon cautioned that the industry is still in its “early internet” phase. “Look I will I'll answer this question by going into the beginning of the internet. So Orkut wasn't the social media that won, it ended up being Facebook and later Instagram; Map Quest wasn't the main map, eventually it was Google Maps. So it's early to call. I think all those companies have big ecosystem. They're investing on their ecosystem. We'll see what happens,” he said.