The Year of the AI Phone: Apple and Honor's "Intelligent Agent" Battle

The Year of the AI Phone: Apple and Honor's "Intelligent Agent" BattleApple is set to unveil its first iPhone 16 series featuring an AI intelligent agent next week, signaling the dawn of the "AI phone era" in the smartphone industry. However, Honor has already beaten Apple to the punch by releasing the industry's first cross-application, open-ecosystem intelligent agent, Honor AIAgent, at IFA 2024

The Year of the AI Phone: Apple and Honor's "Intelligent Agent" Battle

Apple is set to unveil its first iPhone 16 series featuring an AI intelligent agent next week, signaling the dawn of the "AI phone era" in the smartphone industry. However, Honor has already beaten Apple to the punch by releasing the industry's first cross-application, open-ecosystem intelligent agent, Honor AIAgent, at IFA 2024. Honor also announced that it will be commercially deployed on its next-generation flagship phone, the Honor Magic7 series.

Apple's flagship "Apple Intelligence" intelligent agent, an upgraded version of Siri announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference, is designed to understand contextual information and enable smarter search and retrieval. Honor's AIAgent takes the concept further by building a cross-application open ecosystem, allowing users to seamlessly switch between different apps for a more intelligent experience.

In an interview with the media, Honor CEO Zhao Ming used the yet-to-be-released Honor Magic7 series to showcase the capabilities of Honor's intelligent agent, YOYO. By activating YOYO and asking "Which projects have auto-renewal subscriptions," the phone automatically checks Alipay and WeChat for auto-renewal subscriptions and displays the results, allowing users to cancel or retain them according to their needs. This demonstration highlights the potential for AIAgent to be applied in everyday life, signaling that future phones will be more than just communication tools; they will become intelligent assistants in users' lives.

Regarding Apple's upcoming AI phone, Zhao Ming believes that Apple's AI solution is likely to be the most talked about in the industry, but its ultimate success will depend on its AI solution's global adaptability. He emphasizes that local adaptation is a crucial challenge in implementing large language models on the client side. Honor has collaborated with companies like Google and Meta in overseas markets to ensure the global applicability of its AI solutions.

To address the fragmentation of AI solutions, Honor has adopted a strategy of collaborating with multiple AI companies and adapting solutions locally based on different language and application scenarios. Zhao Ming admits that the future workload and investment will be immense, but it is an obstacle that smartphone brands cannot overcome and a key focus of future competition.

Increasingly, more smartphone brands are entering the AI phone arena. IDC predicts that generative AI smartphone shipments will reach 234 million units in 2024, representing nearly 20% of total smartphone shipments, significantly higher than the 4% in 2023. Counterpoint also predicts that 2024 will be the year of the generative AI smartphone. By 2027, this type of phone will account for over 40% of the market share, with over 1 billion units in circulation.

The industry generally believes that the iPhone 16 launch will further drive the development of AI phones. Open Securities believes that the growth in AI terminal shipments and the continuous breakthrough in multi-modal AI model capabilities will open up commercialization space for AI applications.

Zhao Ming expresses his anticipation for a clash with Apple in the field of client-side AI, believing that Apple's efforts in AI will have a driving effect on the entire industry, especially in the domestic market. He emphasizes that innovation surrounding AI, particularly client-side AI, is just beginning, and Apple's entry will accelerate the industry's move towards AI.

Currently, common AI features found in smartphones mainly focus on AI noise cancellation, AI translation, and AI document summarization. However, Zhao Ming believes that true AI phones require intelligent agent capabilities. He points out that third-party AI translation is not developed by smartphone manufacturers themselves but rather integrated into the phone. This integration is insufficient to be considered an AI phone. True AI phones need to have intelligent agents like AIAgent, capable of intent-recognizing human-computer interaction, which is the core of client-side AI.

Zhao Ming predicts that in the future, AI will become a variety of services, similar to today's apps, with countless AI intelligent agents emerging. Therefore, smartphone brands need to focus on building a smart platform that supports a wide range of AI applications. This will be a crucial direction for future development.

In conclusion, the competition between Apple and Honor in the AI phone arena marks a new stage in the development of the smartphone industry. In the future, we will witness the application of more AI functionalities, enjoying a more intelligent smartphone experience.