AI in Your Pocket: How Do Our Smartphones Already Integrate AI?

Smartphones have become integral to modern life since the launch of Apple’s first iPhone in 2007. They hold much of our personal information and give us access to services and apps like email, mobile banking, and social media.

Years later, artificial intelligence (AI) arrived in our smartphones. The technology, which refers to computer systems or machines that perform tasks that usually require human intelligence, has since advanced. AI is now powered by a variety of applications, including:

• Machine learning (ML) algorithms detect patterns in data to make predictions and improve over time based on new inputs.
• Natural language processing (NLP) analyses and generates human language.
• Computer vision identifies and interprets visual inputs like images and video.
• Robotics integrates AI to make automated machines that can move and interact with the physical world.

It’s no wonder that technology companies across the globe are heavily investing in AI, some to specifically improve a consumer’s smartphone experience through virtual assistants and other services. Here are some numbers:

• Google has invested $30.7 billion in AI to improve its search engine and virtual assistant, Google Assistant.
• Facebook has invested $22.1 billion to improve the social media platform’s user experience (UX).
• Amazon has invested $10 billion to improve its delivery services and voice assistant, Alexa.
• Microsoft has invested $10 billion to improve its products and services, including voice recognition.

Let’s look at how our smartphones already integrate AI.

Virtual assistants

Apple pioneered mobile virtual assistants when it launched Siri in 2011. Afterward, Google Assistant, Huawei’s Celia, Samsung’s Bixby, and others joined the competition. They rely on natural language processing and machine learning, two subsets of AI, to improve performance over time.

A virtual assistant, also called an AI assistant or digital assistant, can understand human voice commands, engage in two-way conversations with a user, and complete day-to-day tasks, including making a phone call, adding an event to your calendar, or checking the weather.

Virtual assistants are primarily available on smartphones and home automation devices (such as Amazon’s Alexa). However, Samsung’s Bixby is also incorporated into some smart refrigerators.

You can search the entire internet by making a voice command to your virtual assistant, and search engines offer better results because they understand natural language, not just keywords.

Facial Recognition

Facial recognition, also called facial detection and Face ID, uses computer vision to find and identify human faces in digital images and video. It is now commonly used to unlock your smartphone, access locked apps such as mobile banking, and make digital wallet payments.

Facial recognition first became available on Samsung phones as early as 2011. However, it was not very secure as it used 2D images, so a printed photo of your face or even one displayed on another phone could trick the technology.

Later, Apple took over the technology with the launch of the iPhone X in 2017. Face ID works by illuminating your face with infrared light and projecting 30,000 infrared points onto your face to build a detailed 3D map of your features.

Apple said: “The probability that a random person in the population could look at your iPhone or iPad Pro and unlock it using Face ID is approximately 1 in 1,000,000 with a single enrolled appearance.”

By 2024, biometric facial recognition hardware will be deployed on over 800 million mobile devices, accounting for 90% of smartphones.

Recommendations and Suggestions

AI consistently analyses your smartphone usage, browsing history, and other data and insights to predict content that might be of interest to you or to recommend apps, products, and more.

App suggestions are another advancement but aren’t as widely used yet. Both Apple and Google continue investigating how their operating systems can guess why you’ve unlocked your smartphone from factors including the time of day and location.

For example, if you’ve plugged in or connected your earphones/headphones, your smartphone might suggest opening Spotify, Apple Music, or Audible. Another instance is if it’s 8 a.m. on a weekday and you’re at home, your smartphone might suggest Google Maps or Apple Maps, predicting that you want to know the traffic on your route to work.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) is software that combines a real-world environment with digital overlays to offer an interactive experience.

AR powers several mobile apps, including games such as Pokemon Go - where an avatar is placed on a map of the player’s real-world surroundings - and furniture shopping apps such as Wayfair - which lets you visualize new furniture in a physical room with their ‘View in Room’ feature.

Photography

Many recent smartphones, such as the Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, now have AI cameras that use tools to combine the capabilities of a professional camera with features that were previously only available in editing software. Here are some examples:

• Optical flow technology rapidly snaps multiple pictures and then uses AI software to combine them into a single image without blurring.
• AI powers Pixel’s Night Sight feature, where photos shot in low light can still look bright and clear.
• AI software in Pixel phones can also fix the exposure of high-contrast photos, where shadows make one part of the image look dark, and bright light makes another part look washed out.

Image Search

Computer vision identifies and interprets visual inputs like images and video and can, therefore, offer image search.

You can use the ASOS app to search for an item of clothing or pair of shoes you want or the Amazon app to search for a product using an image from your camera or camera roll of a similar product.

Whilst Image Search on the Google app can be used the same (searching a wide range of online clothing retailers), it can also be used to find the original artist of an image or where a household product is from.

Predictive Text

A smartphone keyboard can use natural language processing to learn from your writing style over time and offer next-word suggestions, making typing faster and easier.

Compared to other aspects of AI, predictive text is straightforward because the rules of a language are universal. If you type “Are” into a message or search box, the chances are the next word will be “you” or “there’ - and then there are only a limited number of words that suitably follow.

Wrapping Up

AI technology and applications make our smartphones more responsive and human-like. Virtual assistants, predictive text, facial recognition, personalized recommendations and suggestions, and other AI-powered features enhance how we interact with our devices.

Bernard Marr, an author and internationally recognized AI expert, said: “The future of the smartphone is all about AI. AI is allowing our phones to become more personalized and more helpful. At the same time, AI is helping to solve some of the biggest problems with smartphones today – like battery life.”