If you’ve been sitting at the edge of your seat waiting for OpenAI’s world-changing AI device(s), you may want to scooch back on your chair.
According to TF Securities International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the company behind ChatGPT is developing a smartphone. Yes, a smartphone. But it reportedly won’t be just any old glass slab—it’ll be an “AI agent phone.” An AI AGENT PHONE.
What the hell is an AI agent phone? Allow me to explain: it’s a phone that uses an AI “agent” to perform tasks on your behalf. Instead of a grid of apps on your home screen that you tap to open, and then tap and swipe and tap some more, you’d simply tell an AI agent to do something, and then it’d do it for you.
“Users are not trying to use a pile of apps,” Kuo posted on X. “They are trying to get tasks done and fulfill needs through the phone. This fundamentally changes how people think about smartphones.”
Kuo, known for his sources buried deep within the manufacturing supply chain, claims OpenAI is working with Qualcomm and MediaTek to create processors for the phone. His report is newsworthy because of his track record in accurately sharing information on product roadmaps long before they’re officially announced.
While OpenAI is actively developing a family of AI gadgets—which could include a pin or a pen or a pair of wireless earbuds—this is the first time that we’re hearing about a phone. The news isn’t surprising at all.
“Only by fully controlling both the operating system and hardware can OpenAI deliver a comprehensive AI agent service,” writes Kuo.
Ask any analyst or AI expert and they’ll tell you the same: an AI device is only as intelligent as the information that it knows about you. Without deep, system-level permissions, an AI’s usefulness will always be at the mercy of the operator, which is the device maker.
It’s this same reason why Humane’s failed Ai Pin could not just be an accessory to existing phones or just an app. Humane knew what everyone is now realizing: you need to control everything from the hardware to the software if you want to put an AI in the driver’s seat.
This is also why, despite fumbling its more intelligent Siri for two years, Apple could come out of the whole disaster ahead of the pack. With over 1.5 billion active iPhones in use, it would take only a single update to push out “agentic” AI features to a large number of devices. With one software update, hundreds of millions of iPhones would suddenly become “AI agent phones.” That’s assuming Apple sorts out all of the issues and the new Siri actually works the way it was advertised nearly two WWDCs ago.
“The smartphone is just the perfect product,” Creative Strategies analyst Max Weinbach tells Gizmodo. “You need all of your data in one place that’s easy to access for any AI. You don’t want to connect all of your apps and services to a cloud host, so you need default apps (Apple mail has all of your emails, after all)… a display to show content, cameras to take in visuals… smartphones are perfect.”
Every phone maker is remaking their phones into “AI agent phones.” Google’s Pixel 10 series started the slow transformation with features like “Magic Cue” that help anticipate tasks by showing pertinent information between certain Google apps. Samsung’s Galaxy S26 phones have an “Automated app action” feature that lets you hail an Uber with a voice command; the phone uses onboard AI to open the app and then tap through the various screens until it reaches the payment confirmation. In China, the Duobao Phone has already delivered on this dream thanks to the country’s more open (and less private, by design) apps.
Some companies like Meta are betting that smart glasses with displays will replace phones. The more likely reality is that phones will never be replaced, the same way laptops and desktops still exist, despite the “post-PC” era of tablets endangering them over 15 years ago.
“Everything else is just an accessory that augments how you use that experience through different modalities with AI, but using the phone as a hub is basically a must,” Weinbach added.
As to whether or not iPhone designer Jony Ive, who Sam Altman is new besties with and has tapped to help design OpenAI’s AI devices, is in hell working on a device that might run on Android?
“I would say the chances are pretty high,” says Weinbach. “Qualcomm and MediaTek both provide open platforms so OpenAI could build anything from a Linux foundation, but it’s more likely they use Android. Android already provides you the telephony stack, networking, and low-level drivers for cameras and audio. It would be needless over-engineering to use an alternative.”
I guess we’ll find out when OpenAI’s phone goes into mass production… in 2028.
