The market for AI applications is rapidly expanding beyond chatbots, opening new growth avenues in areas such as AI-driven art generators, virtual companions, photo & video editors, and personalised productivity tools.
What was once seen as a premium add-on is now becoming a standard feature across consumer technology.
Generative AI is undergoing a clear shift—from an exclusive, high-end capability to a mass-market necessity.
While flagship smartphones will continue to anchor industry revenues through 2030, the next phase of growth is increasingly driven by mid-tier devices.
This trend signals the democratisation of AI, as advanced capabilities such as on-device image enhancement, real-time translation, smart assistants, and creative tools become accessible to a much broader user base.
At the same time, the AI hardware ecosystem is slowly diversifying beyond smartphones.
Emerging AI-enabled form factors—including laptops, extended reality devices, and AI-native products designed specifically around machine intelligence—are still relatively small in scale.
However, they represent the next frontier of innovation, with the potential to reshape how users interact with technology across work, entertainment, and daily life.
Despite this momentum, a critical question remains: will the sector’s explosive growth be sufficient to justify the unprecedented levels of investment pouring into AI?
As the market matures, long-term success will depend not just on adoption, but on sustainable value creation.
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