AI Is Killing the Smartphone
Editor's note: Two decades ago, the smartphone sounded like science fiction. But as our colleague Josh Baylin explains, its rise to prominence was a mathematical certainty. In this piece – which we last published in DailyWealth in June 2025 – Josh explains the three-step formula that helped him predict the smartphone... and why it now says the same tech is on its way out.
In 2004, I stood before a United States congressional hearing on wireless technology and told lawmakers that the future would be unrecognizable...
Mobile phones, music players, GPS units, cameras, and game consoles – all of them would collapse into a single device.
Your word-processing program wouldn't run on Microsoft (MSFT) or Apple (AAPL) operating systems. It would live entirely on the Internet, in the cloud.
You'd touch your phone to a book in a store and access all the information about it – or even buy it on the spot.
At the time, the iPhone hadn't even been announced. The BlackBerry was still cutting-edge. Most people in the room likely thought I was describing science fiction.
Today, not only have all of those predictions come true... they're boring. But I wasn't making lucky guesses back then. Instead, I used a three-step framework that reveals which technological shifts are inevitable.
And ironically, those same three steps show that the device I helped predict in 2004 is now obsolete...
The smartphone itself must die.
Make Better Predictions as a Tech Investor
To predict the future, I don't chase headlines... I use the constraint curve.
You see, every major transformation follows the same three-step pattern:
- Economic and technological pressure builds to an unsustainable breaking point.
- Existing infrastructure fails to handle the mounting stress.
- New technology rushes in to fill the void – because the math demands it.
This isn't a way to speculate about what could happen. Transformations like this must happen – because the alternative is system collapse.
How I Saw the Smartphone Revolution Coming
In 2004, I told Congress that carrying separate devices for music, photos, navigation, and communication was unsustainable. The pressure was building... People were literally weighed down by gadgets.
Each device came with its own charger, its own user interface, and its own learning curve.
In short, the existing infrastructure was failing. Consumers were hitting a complexity ceiling... And they were running out of pocket space.
Worse, the wireless networks of the time were designed for voice calls, not data-hungry applications.
The solution was clear: Everything would move to a single wireless Internet platform. As I told lawmakers, "The wireless Internet basically becomes this new platform for development and the transfer of information... a new platform for device integration."
The smartphone didn't create this future – it simply arrived at the exact moment the constraint curve demanded it.
Three years after my prediction, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. The rest is history.
The Next Inevitable Shift: The Death of the Smartphone
I've been using the same constraint curve analysis to identify the next wave of inevitable transformations. That's how I know the once-revolutionary smartphone has run out of time...
Step 1: Economic Pressure Building
The smartphone has hit biological and economic limits. The average person checks their phone 144 times daily – every 7.5 minutes of waking life.
That's addiction, not productivity. Workers lose 23 minutes' worth of focus every time they check their phones. Employee distraction has gotten so bad, it costs the economy $650 billion annually.
Meanwhile, the technology itself is falling short. Screens can't get much larger. Touch screens can't provide the rich haptic feedback our brains crave. And voice recognition in noisy environments remains limited.
Repetitive strain injuries from touchscreens now affect 70% of smartphone users. We're breaking our bodies just to access information through a 6-inch rectangle.
Step 2: Infrastructure Breaking Point
We're failing to fix these technological and economic drawbacks. And that means smartphones no longer fit into our lives as we know them...
Smartphones require constant visual attention in a world where that's increasingly dangerous and inefficient. Just think about distracted driving – which causes 400,000 injuries per year.
More critically, technology has outgrown the smartphone. As artificial intelligence ("AI") takes over, we're forcing increasingly sophisticated AI systems to communicate through text on tiny screens. It's like trying to have a conversation through a keyhole.
Step 3: Technology Rushing In
Voice-first AI and augmented reality ("AR") aren't emerging because they're "cool." The constraint curve demands them. And when computing becomes more efficient than pulling out a phone, the smartphone will be useless.
In other words, when the costs of screen-based interaction exceed the benefits... we'll know the smartphone has become obsolete.
Companies like Apple, Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Snap (SNAP) are racing to build the products for a post-smartphone world: AR glasses, AI assistants, and even neural interfaces.
Smaller companies like Garmin (GRMN) have bet on watches, while private companies like Oura are betting on rings... And companies like Neuralink and Paradromics are betting on direct links to the brain.
My analysis suggests the smartphone's constraint curve will break by 2029. Around that time, voice-first AI should become more efficient than typing, and AR glasses will be lighter than smartphones.
Why This Investing Technique Matters to You
The end of this era will have massive effects.
We'll see the collapse of the roughly $550 billion (or 1.2 billion-unit) smartphone industry as we know it... the total overhaul of app stores... the death of social media as screen-based entertainment... and more.
The companies that recognize – and solve – these constraint curves early will shape the next era of wealth creation. The ones who miss out will be left in the dust.
You're either early... or you're obsolete.
Good investing,
Josh Baylin
Editor's note: Josh predicted the rise of the iPhone and bitcoin... and has operated at the highest levels of tech and Wall Street for more than 25 years. He recently stepped forward to reveal a brand-new strategy that could have turned $10,000 into nearly $620,000 since 2017. It's designed to double your money (or more) within 90 trading days using regular stocks – and he's making it public for the first time ever.
Further Reading
"Peak functionality is a sell signal, not a buy signal," Josh writes. Nearly twenty years ago, the iPhone made the BlackBerry's entire purpose obsolete. Today, that same pattern is repeating as AI solves the problems plaguing the smartphone. And one simple two-step test could've helped you spot that shift early.
"Truth reveals itself in behavior before it shows up in reports," Josh says. Signals of the next great investing trends are everywhere – you just need to look wherever human behavior leaves traces. And thanks to technology, you don't need Wall Street data to predict where folks are spending their money.