Carl Pei Envisions an App-less Experience on Smartphones
Speaking at an SXSW session on Thursday, the Nothing CEO addressed his previously stated vision of an app-less experience for smartphones. Highlighting his issues with the existing interface, he said, “The current way we use phones is very old school. It’s pre-iPhone[..]You have lock screens, home screens, apps. You browse different apps; each app is like a full-screen thing. There’s some kind of app store that allows you to download more apps. So it hasn’t really changed for like 20 years, this interaction model.”
Calling it “boring,” Pei explained that using a smartphone today feels like doing administrative work. Highlighting an example, he said if a person wants to have coffee with someone, they first need to use an app to book a table, then use a messaging app to let the person know about the plan, then maybe book a calendar event, and then use Uber to go to the place.
Instead, the Nothing CEO’s vision includes just telling an AI agent about their intent, and having it understand the steps involved and execute them. That will free up the user to only show up for the booked cab. Pei says that as AI evolves, it will also be able to handle more complex task executions, such as helping users get healthier and lose weight. “And I think it gets even more powerful when it starts surfacing suggestions for you. I think over time the systems will know us better than we know ourselves and be able to really, you know, create great suggestions,” he added.
Based on this, he concludes that apps as a concept will disappear soon. He also issues a warning that app developers and company leaders whose core operation involves building and distributing applications should think about opening up the application programming interface (API) or the connector protocol (such as Anthropic’s MCP) so that users can automate the functionality via AI agents.
“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,” Pei said.
