Nothing's chief, Carl Pei, recently shared his thoughts at South By Southwest (SXSW), expressing that in the future smartphones might completely do away with mobile apps as agentic AI might take over the ecosystem. At the event Nothing, Chief, conveyed that the current model that hinges on an app-centric model is "boring" and has not gone through any major upgrades in the past two decades. Comparing today's tasks that the smartphones handle to what feels like admin workload, where multiple apps need to be manually paired in order to get the final result, the new agentic AI interface he believes will remove this roadblock and get things done automatically with just the user's command.

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An App-less Experience Could Be On The Horizon

Carl Pei is once again pushing a radical rethink of how we use smartphones. Speaking at a session during SXSW, the Nothing chief revisited his idea of an app-less future and why he believes the current system feels outdated.

He didn’t hold back while describing today’s smartphone experience, saying, “The current way we use phones is very old school. It's pre-iPhone [...] You have lock screens, home screens, and apps. You browse different apps; each app is like a full-screen thing. There's some kind of app store that allows you to download more apps. So it hasn't really changed for like 20 years, this interaction model.”

Pei went on to describe the entire process as unnecessarily tedious, almost like managing a series of small tasks rather than simply getting something done. He pointed out how even a simple plan, like meeting someone for coffee, involves jumping between multiple apps, from booking a table to messaging, setting reminders, and arranging transport.

In his view, this is exactly where AI can step in and simplify things. Instead of opening different apps, users could simply state what they want, and an AI agent would handle everything in the background, from planning to execution.

He also suggested that as AI systems improve, they won’t just respond to requests but will start anticipating needs. Over time, these systems could become capable of offering personalised suggestions and even helping users manage broader goals like improving their health or losing weight, based on a deeper understanding of their habits and preferences.

Building on this, he believes this app-based ecosystem could soon be replaced. He has also warned that app developers and company heads around the globe with core operations relating specifically to app building and distribution should consider more options and look into opening up an application programming interface (API) or connector protocol, like the one Anthropic's MCP has, so the users get an option to automate these functionalities via AI agents.

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Pie added further to this conversation and said, "The future is not the agent using a human interface. You need to create an interface for the agent to use. I think that's the more future-proof way of doing it." Now this is not an industry-wide confirmation but a prediction. Even though Carl Pei makes some important points, its industry-wide adoption and scaling still remain under question; for now you are stuck with the conventional apps, but as ideas progress, there could be something much more interesting and interactive on the anvil in the future.