AI phones don't have stones to touch17 years after the birth of smartphones, mankind is about to usher in more intelligent AI mobile phones, and unlike smartphones in the past, this time there is no forerunner. In 2007, the first iPhone was introduced, and since then, touch-based interaction, high-resolution large screens, and larger cameras have become the standard for smartphones. At one point, there was even a voice that said, "After using an iPhone, you don't want to use another brand." Under the shadow of Apple's mobile phone, latecomers continue to catch up, imitate, and innovate, rolling the configuration of smart phones to the sky, the screen from straight to curved to folding, and the camera from single camera to dual camera to quad camera. But in essence,In the era of smartphones, everyone is crossing the river by touching Apple. Nowadays, as generative AI and large-scale model technology deeply reshape various industries, the future of mobile phones is also being reimagined by AI technology, and the "iPhone moment" of smartphones to AI phones is approaching. 2024 is widely regarded by the industry as the first year of AI mobile phones, and many mobile phone manufacturers will launch their own large models and AI mobile phones. On January 8 this year, OPPO took the lead in releasing the world's first 7 billion device-side large model mobile phone, the Find X7 series, which fired the first shot of AI mobile phones. In addition to OPPO, according to public information, Huawei, Honor, Xiaomi, vivo, Samsung, Google and other first-echelon mobile phone players have released their own large models, but the focus is different. 
For example, Huawei's Pangu large model has larger performance parameters and can only be deployed in the cloud, focusing on industrial scenarios. Xiaomi, on the other hand, attaches more importance to lightweight and local deployment, and builds an AI entrance around "Xiao Ai". What's even more interesting is that this time the iPhone is left behind. According to **, the large model tested by Apple internally is called "AJAX". It is also reported that Apple plans to introduce AI in iOS 18 released in June this year, and Siri assistant AI may become the technical foothold of Apple's mobile phone model. All in all, whether it is the R&D progress of large models, or the performance parameters and deployment methods, there is no standard answer to the unified consensus of AI mobile phones. This also means that the competitive landscape of the AI mobile phone era is completely different from that of the smartphone eraMobile phone manufacturers have no stones to touch, so they can only cross the river with their own skills. So the question is, what should an AI phone look like? 
AI phones are no longer just phonesOn February 20, at the OPPO AI strategy conference, OPPO and IDC jointly released the definition of AI mobile phones in "AI***".Efficient use of computing power, real-world perception, self-learning, and creation. 
Liu Zuohu, chief product officer of OPPO, believes that in the future, only mobile phones with these four capabilities will be called AI mobile phones, but this is only the current 10 AI mobile phone versions. To be honest, the definition of these four abilities still seems too professional, and the author prefers the story of OPPO during the Spring Festival. On Chinese New Year's Eve this year, OPPO did an interesting thing, promoting more than 100 AI practical functions for more than 10 million users, and AI elimination, call summarization and new Xiaobu Assistant won unanimous praise from users. Among them, the AI elimination function only needs to make a simple turn, which can realize the identification and elimination of multiple types of elements such as passers-by and objects, and can generate a natural filling picture to save waste pieces without traces. 
According to OPPO's official statistics, the AI elimination function is used up to 15 times a day per person, which has completely changed the usage habits of users. The experience fed back from the OPPO sales side is even more interesting: "Tell the consumer that this is an AI mobile phone, and he will not feel it; But to show him the AI elimination function, to show the phone can be like this, quite sci-fi, he immediately paid for it. "From the popularity of the AI elimination function, we can be inspired by two points about AI mobile phones:First, AI phones are smarter than smartphones, and their functions are more complex. The second is that AI mobile phones bring subversion of product experience and upgrade according to user needs. For example, when you plan to travel, on your smartphone, you need to open various apps to find transportation, travel routes, weather conditions, etc. In essence, a smartphone is a tool that passively provides help, and the main entrance to the function is various apps, or super apps that integrate multiple functions, such as WeChat. What AI mobile phones need to do is to turn complexity into simplicity in terms of function, and change passive to active in service. When we turn on the AI mobile phone, we no longer need to wake up various apps, but directly say our travel needs, and the mobile phone can actively call various apps, we do not need to participate in this process, and then quickly generate a travel schedule. In a sense,AI mobile phones are clothed with a layer of "human nature", with the ability to actively serve and solve problems, and have changed from a cold tool to a warm housekeeper. From this point of view, what does an AI phone look like, you can imagine what kind of personal butler you want. The first feature is the one mentioned abovePlanning capabilitiesto help you manage your time and resources effectively and solve problems and needs efficiently. The second feature is:Communication skills。Active and effective communication ability comes from the long-term memory ability of user preferences, and in the face of different users, AI mobile phones can gain insight into different needs and give exclusive service methods. From this point of view,AI phones for different users can be completely different ways of interacting, which in turn brings different designs of software and hardware, and will no longer be the same one-click double-click like smartphonesIt presents a different appearance of thousands of people。The third feature is:Coordination skills。Embodied in AI mobile phones, it is the ability to reasonably call third-party tools, and when users ask questions, they know what to use to help solve the problem. More specifically, on AI phones, the AI is responsible for invoking different apps to get information and solutions, and the user no longer needs to open one app after another in personThe fate of apps will also change radically with the evolution of AI phones。It is still impossible to say what the final form of the AI phone will be, but the imagination of the "personal butler" will become clearer and clearer. The more realistic question is, will such a "personal butler" be as popular as smartphones around ordinary people? There is a view that considering the cost of AI computing power and algorithms, as well as the higher requirements for hardware and systems, AI mobile phones may only exist in the high-end flagship mobile phone market. But OPPO doesn't think so. Liu Zuohu thinks,".AI is not exclusive to high-end products, it should be an inclusive technology。"If that's the caseThe technological equality brought by AI mobile phones will be more rapid and more shocking than that of smartphones, which breaks the differentiation of services between classes and reconstructs not only the future of mobile phones, but also the future of human civilization. Therefore, the significance of AI mobile phones is far beyond the mobile phones themselves, and the choice of AI mobile phones is a vote made by ordinary people for their future lives. 
User insights make or break the differenceIt's not hard to foresee that as AI becomes the next story for mobile phones, cramming large models into mobile phones will soon become commonplace. But what about after cram into the big model? How to become a real AI phone, and not just a smartphone dressed as a large model, is not an easy task. Or take the OPPO AI elimination function mentioned above as an example, the reason why users find it easy to use,Behind it is actually OPPO's deep accumulation in AI data training。Being able to do hair-level cutouts without jagged teeth is the result of OPPO's 3 years of accumulation of human and animal maps, data, and training; The elimination can be so silky, and it is also that OPPO has accumulated a long time on the visual algorithm, which can support the recognition of more than 120 types of subjects. The accumulation of data training does not happen overnight. As early as 2020, OPPO launched its first AI model, and in 2023, it released its first self-trained Andean model (AndesGPT), and has been continuously increasing its investment in AI. Compared with the volume configuration in the smartphone era, it is undoubtedly a new challenge for mobile phone manufacturers to roll AI capabilities. In the view of Liu Zuohu, the chief product of OPPO, there are three challenges for AI mobile phones:The first is how to accurately perceive the real worldThe second is to have enough computing powerThird, it is necessary to have the advanced nature of the algorithmThe first point is related to the evolution of mobile phone hardware, while the computing power and algorithms mentioned in the last two points are completely competitive with the degree of investment in AI and the depth of layout. It can be said that the secret of the victory or defeat of AI mobile phones is hidden in the depths of the algorithm, not in the appearance of the mobile phone's hardware.
WhileBehind the competition algorithm is actually the depth of insight into user needs.
For this reason, OPPO has already had a layout and has done two major things. First things firstContinue to invest in cloud computing power, built the OPPO AI Marina Bay data center that can support high computing power. 
This is OPPO's first self-built ultra-large data center, which can support hundreds of billions of AI model training, support ultra-low latency of two-millisecond backbone network links, and run with 100% pure green energy. Zhang Jun, product director of OPPO AI Center, said that the data center provides better and higher-performance computing power for large model inference training and computing, and can also do some substantial research in the direction of low power consumption, including energy conservation and emission reduction. The second thing isEstablishment of an entity's AI centerto close the organizational loop. OPPO has separated all AI-related organizations from the entire company and set up a dedicated physical AI center to build capacity and develop products for AI, so as to achieve a rapid closed loop. In Liu Zuohu's words, it is".Let AI be as fast as an Internet product”。In terms of AI investment, OPPO has not set an upper limit, and Liu Zuohu is more optimistic about future returns. He believes that in the early stage of technological development, it is certainly not necessary to look at the returns first, but whether it is the identification of this general trend that is the most important. As for the return, as long as the user is satisfied, are you still worried about the return? This confidence and confidence undoubtedly comes from OPPO's advance layout and long-term investment in AI. In other words, the race for AI phones has already begun, and players who are not ready may have lost the opportunity to sit at the table. 
EpilogueIn 2024, the era of AI mobile phones has only kicked off, and the future has come, but the whole picture is still hidden in the fog. For Chinese mobile phones that hit the high-end to fight the world, this is a battle of fate that has to be rushed. It's no man's land that hasn't been reached yet, but it could also be a new paradise for adventurers, and fate is not in the hands of someone else. Clayton Christensen, the author of The Innovator's Dilemma and a professor at Harvard Business School, once said, "Innovation is initially an inconspicuous thing, a joke, but suddenly one day it hits the weakness of the consumer, and it will grow rapidly and become the ruler." From OPPO's AI elimination function, we undoubtedly see such a trend:Only by gaining insight into the needs of users and turning early adopters into common use can we find the key to the future of AI mobile phones. According to IDC**, global AI phone shipments will reach 1700 million units, accounting for about 15% of overall smartphone shipments; By 2027, the number of AI phones in the Chinese market will reach 1500 million units, with a market share of more than 50%. 
It took eight years for smartphones to reach such a market share, and only four years for Chinese AI phones. It's too early to talk about who will be the winner in the era of AI mobile phones, but there is no doubt that the first to raise the flag and pathfinder deserves more applause.