The post-smartphone era: what comes after the touchscreen?

Tuesday 01 April 2025 5:17 am|Updated:Monday 31 March 2025 5:28 pmBy: Paul ArmstrongSmart 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...