• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, November 29, 2023

2023 was clearly the year of AI in the same way 2007 was the year of mobile.

In 2007, Apple released the iPhone.  Prior to 2007, there were cell phones and hand-held devices, but nobody remembers them quite as fondly as they do their iPhone.

In 2023, the masses received ChatGPT.  There were AI tools before ChatGPT, but most of them will not be remembered as fondly, either.  What I find most ironic is, those previous AI platforms were mostly used for voice assistance, and the emergence of Generative AI has paved the way for a new evolution of those same voice assistants.  Even more interestingly, those voice assistants will revolutionize the mobile phone landscape once again.

I’ve been an avid voice-assistant user for years, and most recently I’ve increased my reliance on Siri as a tool.  I use it for taking notes, reminders and calendar items dozens of times each day.    A common occurrence in my house is for my wife to say, “remind me to” whatever, which is immediately followed by me saying (just as prominently) “Siri remind me to [whatever] at 4 p.m. today.”  Without Siri, I would never remember half the things I am supposed to.  Siri might just be saving marriages across the world.

The AI Pin was released recently, and while I have no desire to purchase one, I think the concept is interesting.  The Pin tries to reduce the surface area of your phone to a small object that works off voice activation and a projector display.  The Pin is what an iPhone might be like if it were one inch by one inch square.

They say revolutions happen in the smallest moments, and I’m certain Apple is taking note of how this little device could signal the company to pivot some way in the near future. 

Generative AI paves the way for far more robust voice assistants with more elegant and accurate responses.  I used to joke that Siri never understood me, but now it does -- and with a more robust LLM behind it, it will not only understand my requests better, but could likely begin to predict them.

Speaking of predictions, what does 2024 hold, if 2023 was the year of AI?

I’m not making too many predictions this year, but I am making a single stab that generative AI will begin to have a profound effect on mobile and search.  On mobile, I expect more predictive voice assistant activations from Siri and Android.  Alexa has been trying to do this for some time, but Alexa simply doesn’t have the same breadth of insight into my daily activity that Apple and Google do.  It knows what I buy, but not where I go, who I call, what I do, how many calories I burn, or the rest. 

Alexa’s predictions are centered around shopping, and the lights that spin around on my household devices are nothing more than glorified direct-mail coupons.  Amazon’s predictions are self-serving.  Apple and Google are getting better with their predictive AI tools in Maps and other apps, respectively.

I won’t be surprised to hear iOS 18.1 delivering permissions for the Siri AI to start making announcements and recommendations for day based on my mobile phone behavior.  Monetization of the platform will mostly still be through purchasing Apple products, but you never know the tricks Apple and Google may have up their sleeves.

Second, I’ve said it before, but generative search UI will bring a dramatic demise of open web traffic as fewer and fewer people will click to search results when the generative search aggregates and delivers everything they need.  This will begin in 2024, but really start to take hold in 2025. 

I may be right.  I may be wrong.  The one thing I do know is that these things are bound to happen.  It’s just a matter of time when.