Smart interfaces and AI agents are the next frontier in digital evolution, so what happens when you no longer need a screen to use your tech? Asks Paul Armstrong

We swipe. We tap. We double-click and long-press. For over 20 years, the smartphone has been the interface through which we interact with everything – our friends, our work, our news, our sense of self. But cracks are starting to show. Screens are saturated. Apps are bloated. Notifications are noise. The smartphone isn’t going away overnight, but its cultural and technological dominance is already being challenged and that’s going to mean interesting shifts for every business under the sun.

The shift won’t be to one device. It’ll be to a system; a network of interfaces, sensors and AI agents embedded across our environments, our bodies – and sooner than we’d all probably like, our thoughts. The future is unlikely to be one gadget to replace the phone, we’ve had wearables for years, and while many are popular, none are as ubiquitous as the smartphone. The real shift is how digital life will evolve once we stop needing to hold it in our hands.

We’re moving toward an interface-light world. Smart assistants are no longer just in your phone – they’re in your car, your kitchen, your workplace. Add to that the rise of multimodal AI: models that can see, speak, listen, remember and act across platforms. These systems are increasingly agentic – able to make decisions, complete tasks and anticipate needs without human prompting. We’re in the early days, but already you can see the disruptive elements swirling.

Augmented reality (AR) glasses are inching closer to mainstream viability. Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, Apple’s Vision Pro, and Google’s persistent AR projects are all early attempts at collapsing the screen into your surroundings. No more checking a map on your phone – your route is hovering in front of your face. Need to understand a foreign language? Subtitles appear in real time as someone speaks. Visual overlays, contextual cues and........

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