T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom previews smartphone that ditches apps for an AI-centric UI

T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom has partnered with Brain AI and Qualcomm to showcase a new AI-centered smartphone concept that it is working to bring to market. The way the concept functions is very similar to AI-centered devices like the Humane Ai Pin and the Rabbit R1. However, where those devices seek to either replace a smartphone, or work as a companion, Deutsche Telekom is aiming to create a smartphone that is built on an AI-centric user interface sans apps.

To achieve this, Deutsche Telekom has partnered with Brain AI, one of the pioneer’s of generative AI large language models (LLM). Brain AI calls its Natural AI “the world’s first generative interface,” which makes AI and getting things done central to the user experience. This is aimed at upending the current app-first smartphone approach, which uses AI-powered assistants, but only as a supplement to the user experience.

Deutsche Telekom’s Chief Product & Digital Officer, Jon Abrahamson explains the vision: 

Artificial intelligence and Large Language Models (LLM) will soon be an integral part of mobile devices. We will use them to improve and simplify the lives of our customers. Our vision is a magenta concierge for an app-free smartphone. A real everyday companion that fulfills needs and simplifies digital life.

You can see how the interface is intended to work in the video embedded below. The company is currently showing a live demo of the Natural AI interface running on one of its T Phones at its stand at MWC 2024. While this variant off-loads the AI processing to the cloud, Deutsche Telekom has partnered with Qualcomm to show the system running on-device with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 reference device as well. 

The approach that Deutsche Telekom and Brain AI are taking sounds similar to what OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Jony Ive are cooking up, which could really start to shake up the smartphone landscape as we currently know it. While Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS are the current default smartphone operating systems, they have been built on an app-first paradigm. Apple makes billions of dollars from its iPhone and App Store model, and is unlikely to want to embrace a UI that pushes apps aside in favor of AI. Customers, however, will ultimately be final arbiters in this looming battle.

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