Carl Pei has never been afraid to pour gasoline on the fires that fuels the tech world, and during SXSW he launched an attack on one of the most obvious aspects of our smartphone lives today: apps. According to him, they're living on borrowed time, and he claims that the entire ecosystem is essentially doomed, as AI will completely take over.
Instead of jumping between different apps to book a trip, send messages, or plan a meeting, the phone of the future will understand what you want and do the work for you in the background. Pei says:
"...in terms of AI in software, I think people should understand apps are going to disappear. If you're a founder or a startup and your app is where your core value lies, that will be disrupted, whether you like it or not. If you have a very strong brand or very strong distribution, you could delay it by a little bit, but otherwise, I would advise everybody to think differently.
"For instance, if the future is going to be agents doing things for you, and if you have an app, why not open up the API or the MCP so that agents can use it, frictionless? I've seen on smartphones that some companies are trying to mimic the human touch on smartphones. So you have an AI agent that's trying to click like Uber and enter on the keyboard the address you're going to go to. That's not the future. 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"
This claim might sound a bit strange, but according to Pei, we're already heading in that direction. He also points out that the interface on our phones has largely stood still since the iPhone era, home screens filled with little squares and app stores acting as gatekeepers. It's simply old and outdated.
Instead, a more intelligent and AI-integrated operating system will take over and handle everything for you. In short, it will act as a personal assistant, and Nothing itself is working full steam ahead to position itself for this future.
Do you think apps feel outdated, and does it sound like Pei is onto something?