Карл Пей представляє перший Nothing Phone / Скриншот
Carl Pei from Nothing spoke about his vision of the smartphone market and technology in general, including AI, and the place of his company in the future.
In the Wired interviewCarl Pei talked about how gadgets will change in the future, the right and wrong way to introduce new technologies, and the place of his relatively small startup in the process. He called Nothing «the only startup in the industry» — the rest of the market is large corporations. Pei said that in such an environment, a brand has only one way to succeed: to be creative and know its audience. As an example, he cited Apple — what the company used to be, but not anymore.
«Personally, I was very inspired by Apple when I was younger — the first iPod, the first iPhone — that’s why I work in this industry. But now the creative companies of the past have become very big and corporate, and they are not very creative anymore. They don’t inspire the younger generation anymore,» said Carl Pei.
Pei sees software as a big advantage. He says that the smartphone market is becoming boring, and only Nothing brings diversity to it. Technology should be interesting, not just presented as a fact. Here, Pei again mentioned Apple, namely the first iPod and iPhone. He cited the example of the iPod, which was not just the MP3 player with a hard drive that everyone was talking about at the time, but a handy gadget combined with user-friendly software and the iTunes online service — and therefore won. But now everything is going wrong.
«In this respect, the Apple of today is very different from the Apple of my younger days. Last year, they told a very high-profile the story of Apple Intelligence. Now, a year later, it’s not much more than a few generated emojis. So it caused a lot of skepticism among consumers».
Carl Pey doesn’t believe in technology for technology’s sake — it should provide the user with convenience, advantage, and useful capabilities. The executive «went over the current trends in the field of AI, market experiments with devices that, in his opinion, «will not take off» right now.
«I think the way we use devices will change in the future. In the short term, I don’t think we will see a real proliferation of new forms of hardware. People are trying different things like smart glasses and Humane AI Pin, but I don’t believe in these form factors right now because the market is so small. Smart glasses sell about 1 million units a year, and devices such as AI Pin, — about 5000 units per year. Smartphones, on the other hand, sell about a billion units per year».
CEO Nothing in the spread of AI technology yet alternatives to smartphones. They are widespread, universal, and contain a lot of user and environmental data, which is a good basis for AI and personalization.
«We use smartphones for everything, and the key to good AI is data. I don’t think any other device will be as important for artificial intelligence as a smartphone in the near future».
But Pei predicts that in up to 10 years (not as fast as everyone wants now), the way we use smartphones will change completely. Instead of using separate apps and many mechanical user steps, the smartphone’s operating system will simply do what it wants to do and will help you when you need it.
«This will change dramatically. I believe that in the future, the entire phone will have only one application — and that will be the operating system. The OS will know its user well and will be optimized for them. … The next step after data-driven personalization, in my opinion, is automation. That is, the system knows you, knows who you are, and knows what you want. For example, the system knows your situation, time, place, and schedule, and it suggests what you should do. … In the future, your phone will suggest what you want to do and then do it automatically for you».
Carl Pei says that in addition to technology, it is important to offer the world something emotional. Nothing explores current trends, including development of AI and smart glasses to offer users their own «killer features» at the right time, in a dense competitive environment.