What Is Coming After Smartphones In The Eyes Of Big Tech Companies?

The once-dominant mobile computer in the palm of our hands is now obsolete as we move past 2025. The leaders in technology expect a future without smartphones and have invested over $150 billion in AR glasses, AI-based friends, BCIs, and ambient computing environments. The goal of these technologies is to help people break free from their screens and provide a better and more useful way for people to participate in daily life.

Post-smartphone technology could be worth $3 trillion to the industry, thanks to AI’s bidirectional skills and AR’s visual cover, even though the smartphone sector will grow by 6.4% in 2024. This blog talks about the changes that are causing a big tech industry transformation, like the investments, new technologies, problems, and ideas that are moving it. These changes show how tech giants see a future beyond smartphones based on recent research and models.

Important Things to Remember

• The world’s biggest tech companies have poured over $150 billion into AR, AI, BCI, and environmental computing technologies in order to help make a future beyond smartphones a reality.
• The smartphone market has hit saturation, which makes people want hands-free, privacy-focused options that meet their needs.
• Meta, Neuralink, OpenAI, Google, Apple, and other important companies are working on new technologies that will replace or add to the functions of smartphones.
• These new technologies will only be successfully adopted if problems with privacy, ethics, and battery life are solved.
• The $3 trillion market chance, or economic stakes, will have a huge effect on GDP around the world as technologies get better.

The Shift to a Post-Smartphone Era: Tech Giants Imagine a Time After Smartphones

The smartphone market is growing up, and usage will likely go down by 2027–2028. The world’s biggest tech companies have poured over $150 billion into alternatives to smartphones, such as AI-driven systems and AR glasses. This change hopes to bring about ambient intelligence between 2032 and 2035. This would let devices predict your needs without having to give them clear instructions, which could make smartphones obsolete. Also, the global AI market will be worth $243.7 billion by 2025, with a growth rate of 27.67% per year, and the AR/VR markets are growing quickly for business uses. Also, 70% of Fortune 500 companies are using AI tools, and they are quickly making 6% to 10% more income.

Key causes of this change are:

• Market Saturation: In 2024, funding for smartphone add-ons dropped by 23%, which showed that investors had lost interest in standard mobile tech.
• Technological Advances: Improvements in AI, sensors, and miniaturization will allow wearables and devices that can be implanted to involve people more than smartphones and have more benefits.
• Consumer Demand: A poll shows that 68% of people want hands-free tech that lets them do multiple things at once, as well as personalized platforms that protect their privacy. This is because they are worried about their privacy.
• Economic Incentives: After smartphones, the market is expected to become a $3 trillion mega-market by 2030, going from specialized areas to this size makes it a good target for research and development.
  Timeline of Disruption
• 2025–2026: Early adoption with things like cheap AR glasses and the brain connections that can be bought and sold.
• 2027–2028: AR gets as smart as smartphones in skilled fields, becomes popular with the general public, and ambient AI reaches 25% of all developed markets.
• 2029–2030: 200 million people will use technology after smartphones until smartphones are no longer used.

Key Players and the Ways They Plan to Win

1. Meta’s Plan for AI and AR

Since 2019, Meta has spent more than $50 billion on its Reality Labs’ virtual reality and augmented reality teams. After the success of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which sold over a million pairs last year, it’s been decided that Hypernova smart glasses with AR features and holographic screens will come out in 2025. Meta put $3.5 billion into EssilorLuxottica, the company that owns Ray-Ban and Oakley, which seems to be an effort to make stylish AI-powered gadgets.

• Key Features: Live AI will understand what’s going on, and some cameras will make real-time interactions possible and add to Meta’s environment.
• Challenges: It’s hard to keep the cost down because prototypes can cost up to $10,000 each, and the battery life isn’t great.
• Impact: Meta’s goal is to make AR glasses as common as smartphones. By 2030, it is expected that 13 million pairs will be shipped worldwide.

2. Neuralink’s Method: Making Direct Connections from the Brain to a Computer

Elon Musk started Neuralink to make brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that would link AI to knowledge. The N1 Implant has 1024 electrodes and could offer 99.2% thought-controlled computing to its first users. They plan to do a second round of 27 implants in 2025, after promising to track memory improvement by 2026 and sensory data by 2027. BCI’s $1.8 billion investment in 2024, up 156% year-over-year, shows how tech companies see their future after smartphones.

• Applications: Giving people who are paralyzed power over devices, with the possibility of enhancing cognition.
• Market Growth: The BCIs market will grow from $2.3 billion in 2024 to $24.7 billion by 2030, with a $1.8 billion VC in 2024, which is a 156% rise.
• Competitors: Startups such as Synchron, which raised $75 million, provide stent-based interfaces that are less invasive.

3. OpenAI’s Model: Using AI in Everything

OpenAI is working toward ambient intelligence, which means that AI will be a part of our surroundings. The goal is to let AI that can guess and understand circumstances help us. They will have spent $3.4 billion, which is 89% more than expected. Forty percent of their 2024 budget goes to hardware agreements focused on ambient systems. Figure AI is pushing robotics, and models like o1 and Operator to do things on their own.

AI Innovations in the Environment

• Prototypes: Depending on the data that is given, AI sensors may change the way a room is set up or change the pace of the process.
• Market Growth: It is thought that the global market for integrative hypothetical future technologies will be worth $156.8 billion by 2030. This is based on the idea that IoT connections that are already in use will continue to grow.

The challenges are the risks of surveillance and data control in businesses, but tech giants see a future beyond smartphones with exchanges that don’t require any learning.

4. Google’s AI-Integrated AR Ecosystem

Google is using AI and AR to make a more open space, similar to how Android took over the smartphone market. The business has spent 5.7 billion dollars on AR and AI research and development. Working with Samsung and Qualcomm on Android XR, a platform that makes Android work with extended reality devices. Acquisitions like North, which makes smart glasses, make its business focus stronger and show that tech giants want to go beyond smartphones in the future.

Key Points of Google’s Plan

• Project Astra: Project Astra is an AI tool for AR glasses that can understand what’s going on around it by listening to voice commands and watching movements.
• Smart Glasses Development: Using what was learned from Google Glass, smart glasses now use AI for guidance and translation in real time. These glasses are made for both businesses and everyday consumers.
• Wider New Technologies: Putting money into quantum computing and AI that learns on the job helps ambient computing, which is when smart home hubs and other devices guess what the user needs.
• Future Outlook: Google’s open-source approach might help people get used to it faster, even though it has to compete with closed systems like Apple’s.

5. The Big Change in Spatial Computing Apple’s Made

Instead of giving up on smartphones completely, Apple is adding spatial computing to its environment. CEO Tim Cook spends almost 60% of his work time on AR projects because he thinks that AR glasses will eventually take the place of the iPhone. The company also said it spent about $8.3 billion on R&D for location technology. The main thing it wants to do is find ways to work with gadgets that are already out there.

Innovations and Plan for the Future

• Vision Pro Headset: This mixed-reality device brings spatial computing, but it costs $3,499 and has issues that make people reluctant to use it. About 45% of people who took part said they had eye strain, and only 12% said they used it every day after the first thrill.
• Apple Glass: These lightweight AR glasses are said to be coming out sometime between 2026 and 2027. They will show information like directions and alerts right in front of the person wearing them. They should use the iPhone’s processing power to make things run smoothly.
• Ecosystem Leverage: Apple’s strength is in keeping users locked in, as AR glasses work perfectly with Macs, Watches, and iPhones. This integration makes people more productive by adding features like virtual meetings and augmented buying.
• Strategic Partnerships: Working with suppliers on AI chips and advanced screens shows that Apple is really committed to AR development. But the high cost and short battery life could delay broad adoption.

6. Microsoft’s Holographic and Mixed Reality Push

Microsoft is looking into holographic interfaces and mixed reality. They have put $3.2 billion into research and development for technology that will make it possible to connect in mid-air without having to wear anything. HoloLens and other business-focused tools make progress in the field of AR. At the same time, tech companies think about a future that doesn’t include smartphones.

Main Changes

• HoloLens Series: Changes for training and design, with AI improvements to recognize objects.
• Azure Integration: This is AI that works in the cloud and helps ambient computing in factories and smart offices.
• Partnerships: Work with hardware makers on MR systems that can be scaled up.
• Breakthrough Technologies Making the Transition Possible

In 2025, prototypes will show how solutions in energy, computing, and visuals are developing. This will make possible useful choices in a world where tech giants see a future beyond smartphones.

New Display Technology

Waveguide Tech: Thanks to the work together with others, Meta can make light, see-through images that get wider and wider, with a field of view of 40 degrees by 2026.

• Retinal Solutions: Mojo Vision’s contact lenses provide clear and efficient images.
• Holographic Prospects: Microsoft’s test holograms offer a future where devices aren’t needed to interact.
• Finding a Balance Between Local and Cloud Processing
• On-Device AI: Qualcomm’s XR2+ does things in real time on its own.
• Specialized Chips: Apple’s M4 and Google’s Tensor make AI tasks 10 times more efficient.
• Hybrid Models: Meta’s dynamic allocation across glasses, phones, and servers makes speed better.

Improvements in Long-Term Power Supply

• Next-Gen Batteries: Solid-state choices have three times the density and charge quickly.
• Harvesting Methods: The basics can run forever because of body and environmental energy sources.
• Wireless Systems: The technology from WiTricity lets gadgets stay powered on all the time.
• Challenges and Customer Knowledge in the Change

Even though they’re excited, the tech companies that want to move past smartphones will have to deal with a lot of problems. A lot of people are worried about privacy when using brain connections (74%) or ambient AI (68%). Integration (67%) and battery life (89% desire) are very important.

Important Problems and How to Fix Them

• Privacy and Ethics: Continuous tracking increases data risks; solutions include open government.
• Social Friction: More than a third of testers said they were uncomfortable with AR glasses; design changes are meant to make everyone used to them.
• When it will be done: It will take about 12 to 18 months to get value from business AI, which is similar to how long it takes to get value from consumer technology.
• Cybersecurity: Strong integration is important because most (89%) of the time, tools don’t stop hacks.

Consumer polls of 12,000 show that there is a need for reliable, user-friendly designs to encourage people to use them. This is in line with how big tech companies see the future beyond smartphones.

Last Words

The big investments from tech companies are a sign of a deep change where new technologies like AI and AR glasses can make intuitive experiences without screens that help people do more. It is important to make sure that everyone can equally use these new technologies. This requires overcoming difficulties related to privacy, ethics, and energy use. When these technologies get better, they will allow more people to use powerful computers, which will lead to new ideas in every field. In the end, the big tech companies want a world without smartphones, where devices work together instead of staying separate.

The $3 trillion market possibility makes it clear how important the economy is. It’s expected that AI alone will add trillions of dollars to the world GDP. If giants like Microsoft and OpenAI work together, it will speed up usage beyond companies. Even though there are still problems, the route shows that cybernetic evolution will make things better for everyone. If it comes true, this bold plan will reuse talent for the next generations, just like big companies want to do with the world after smartphones.

Common Questions

What are AR glasses, and how are big tech companies putting money into them?

Augmented reality (AR) glasses show digital information on top of the things you see in real life. As big tech companies picture a future that isn’t based on smartphones, Apple looks into working with Vision Pro and Meta puts $16.1 billion into goods like Ray-Ban Meta and Hypernova.

How is AI affecting the future in areas other than smartphones?

Artificial intelligence makes ambient computing and robotics possible. Microsoft Copilot makes businesses 67% more productive, and OpenAI works on building smart technology in environments.

In the world of technology that comes after smartphones, what part do personal devices play?

Wearable tech like Apple’s Smart Ring can keep an eye on your health and control devices with your hands. When they are used with AI-powered gadgets, they can make predictions based on how you use them.

Who’s in charge of brain-computer connections, and what are they?
BCIs let you control things with your thoughts. Neuralink’s N1 implant is the first to be tested and hopes to be widely used by 2030 in a business that has already invested $1.8 billion.

When will most people use AR glasses?

It is expected that by 2028, 87 million pairs of smart glasses will be sold, with launches like Meta’s Hypernova in 2025 and Apple’s in 2026–2027.