According to a CNET survey, just 11% of people upgrade their phones because of AI features. Here’s what they care about instead, and why mobile AI hasn’t picked up much steam.
You can find the products mentioned in this video linked below
Apple iPhone 16 Pro, 256GB, Black Titanium – Unlocked
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7
Samsung Galaxy S25
Google Pixel 9 Pro
*CNET may get a commission on these offers
Read more about CNET’s AI survey on CNET.com
CNET Survey: Just 11% of People Upgrade Their Phone for AI Features
0:00 Intro
0:19 AI Features Survery Results
0:41 What Buyers Care About in Phones
1:14 AI Subscriptions on Phones
1:49 Are People Willing to Pay for AI Features?
3:16 AI Features That Are Actually Helpful
3:41 How To Turn Off AI on an iPhone
4:01 How To Turn Off AI on a Galaxy Phone
4:07 How To Off AI on a Google Pixel Phone
Subscribe to CNET on YouTube:
Never miss a deal again! See CNET’s browser extension 👉
Check out CNET’s Amazon Storefront:
Follow us on TikTok:
Follow us on Instagram:
Follow us on Bluesky:
Follow us on X:
Like us on Facebook:
CNET’s AI Atlas:
Visit CNET.com:
#ai #smartphone #gemini #appleintelligence #howto
@CNET
July 14, 2025 at 1:41 pm
Read more about CNET’s AI survey on CNET.com CNET Survey: Just 11% of People Upgrade Their Phone for AI Features
@BarnOwl61
July 14, 2025 at 2:24 pm
AI is not for the phone user. It is the ultimate spy tool! Nobody will pay for it, and it will stay free. How generous 😅
@jglstx
July 14, 2025 at 2:39 pm
AI = 😱
@rgen28
July 14, 2025 at 3:12 pm
Because we only care if AI will clean my toilet. The rest are useless.
@21Shells
July 14, 2025 at 3:16 pm
“Windows has new AI features”
Immediately toggles it off so that I can get back to what I was doing. Its the main reason I stopped using Google for DuckDuckGo, because you *cant* turn the AI off on Google. And uh… they want us to pay for this?
@tedboggs4569
July 14, 2025 at 3:18 pm
I don’t care because I have a working brain already installed in my head. I just don’t need it. Don’t get me wrong, there are a ton of great uses for AI, but nothing I’ve seen in the consumer space makes it worth it … yet. As for what I want in a phone: I want my iPhone 11 Pro back. It was the perfect size, had plenty of battery, and performed all tasks quickly and without issue. My iPhone 14 is just a tad too big, but is otherwise identical from a functionality perspective, so why did I upgrade?
@ILoveUEVR
July 14, 2025 at 3:20 pm
AI has changed my life! But… I never needed a new phone to make use of it. I do all that on desktop PC in a browser. Or on my phone’s browser when I need to.
@FarashLaffir
July 14, 2025 at 3:20 pm
I like the free ai
@DK-ue5ks
July 14, 2025 at 3:58 pm
Literally bloat software that will slow down, bottle neck, and kill battery life. Nobody wants it.
@pengchengwu447
July 14, 2025 at 4:34 pm
Most people aren’t living on intelligence anyways.
@ElDonNando18
July 14, 2025 at 4:54 pm
I mean where can phone companies really go to make phones look different. Everything already has been thought of. You can’t really change a look for a phone. I don’t think phones have much more to give than a screen in the front and a camera in the back. That’s basically it
@perhapsme988
July 14, 2025 at 5:03 pm
They are charging AI for the fact that the capital costs for AI are horrendous.
Tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on AI these last 2-3 years. They need the return to justify this and future spending.
Many on the device features aren’t AI. They wouldn’t attract charges. It’s the Gemini of the world that people might have to pay.
Well I Google has itself to blame for putting Gemini response ahead of normal Google search outcomes that pay to be listed. Free whatever is not something Google could afford long term.
If AI revenue is minimum, the huge capital spend would slow down dramatically. Outflow couldn’t continue if only minimum inflow comes.
Cloud storage will get more expensive if AI revenue is not there.
@MP-lv5vk
July 14, 2025 at 6:08 pm
For me, the AI features aren’t utilities. They’re largely gimmicky features I might use for fun or the cost isn’t justified.
@jaredwalker715
July 14, 2025 at 6:43 pm
Ai I nowhere near good enough for me to be willing to use it for more than replying to texts or clearing notifications while I’m driving and need to be hands free. Outside of that, I don’t think I would care much for ai besides more enhanced control over my phone.
@jesperjakaiceman2418
July 14, 2025 at 6:44 pm
Hate ai
@BrendanJWalker
July 14, 2025 at 7:01 pm
The ultimate tool for the mass manipulation of a society
@jechuwen
July 14, 2025 at 7:25 pm
I want base storage of 512GB!
@chidianuforo3670
July 14, 2025 at 7:32 pm
If you’re on Android, you don’t need to upgrade to get A.I. This sounds too much like an Apple problem while trying hard to make it sound like it’s not only an Apple problem.
@HokgiartoSaliem
July 14, 2025 at 7:38 pm
A lot of storage –> so add dual microSD express slot, the one used in Switch 2.
Camera: Redmi Note 15 and up I hope they will use LTY-900 as main camera.
@markseto1172
July 14, 2025 at 7:45 pm
Having AI features is more of a burden than anything
@RojCowles
July 14, 2025 at 7:46 pm
Just from personal experience AI on phones is enough of an anti-feature I’ll be holding onto my Galaxy S21 for as long as I can. And after seeing an Ad for the S25 that was wall to wall AI my wife stated she’d never get one. So if anyone from the Samsung marketing dept happens to be reading we have suggestions for where your AI initiatives should go.
@mariacheebandidos7183
July 14, 2025 at 8:32 pm
ai is very necessary – unnecessary at the same time.
apple is doomed because it is lagging behind in ai – no one buys phones because of ai.
the ai headlines and narratives are …
observation: ai is important and maybe even necessary for some tasks,
phone manufactures (like apple) don’t need their own stand-alone ai platforms the same way they didn’t need their own social media, search platforms.
so maybe everyone quit with all the lazy takes about apple and ai?
@Riskyjoe1525
July 14, 2025 at 8:46 pm
Chat GPT is the only thing worth paying and it is totally not related to smartphone upgrade. The problem is getting used to AI features is annoying by its own
@CFC_44
July 14, 2025 at 9:05 pm
Apple aren’t loading it.. that’s the thing
@KT1986Sep
July 14, 2025 at 9:26 pm
Forget the AI hype, it’s been years! Just give me longer battery life already!
@rajasekarwrites
July 14, 2025 at 10:12 pm
So do you mean, Apple doesnt care about those 11% who are switching for AI capabilities?
@weekendwarrior8179
July 14, 2025 at 11:19 pm
AI isn’t a reason to upgrade because it’s software. But…I would never pay for it…. Other that ChatGpt
@sagarpaperwala
July 15, 2025 at 12:43 am
Phone companies can make a single camera phone, which has a 48 or 64 MP and use all sorts of AI to do stuff like zoom and micro as well as portrait, I still cant see much development in such forefront
@bradleyswaney6100
July 15, 2025 at 1:00 am
I could care less about AI. I want faster charging and bigger batteries. “Samsung”
Get with the program if you want me to every buy another device from you.
I will never pay for any AI. Fact.
@citizen_of_earth_
July 15, 2025 at 1:24 am
AI needs to be embedded into the operating system to truly be useful. It needs to be an agent that can take over your phone and do things like change settings or control apps
@DasBeefi
July 15, 2025 at 2:18 am
AI is good at helping developers create for the consumer. AI alone isn’t enough to satisfy the consumer.
@flamingteabag4572
July 15, 2025 at 2:34 am
My life just isn’t busy enough to need AI 😂. If the Pixel 10 is more about AI than hardware improvements, I’m unlikely to upgrade from my 8 pro. It’s a clever tool, but it’s also unreliable, unpredictable and makes stuff up. Would you employ someone like that? At some point a big business out there is going to be the first to collapse because they relied on AI instead of people.
@TheNaiv69
July 15, 2025 at 3:35 am
charging money for AI will kill it especially when they use it to collect our data and information, also AI is better than ok google or siri or alexa etc, However those could either do what you ask it or not, AI just seems to go ahead, and can lie or mislead or have false info which makes it untrustworthy
@nooahchannel
July 15, 2025 at 4:30 am
Yes, I agree. AI is overrated, it is usually very painful to use it.
@--DM
July 15, 2025 at 6:04 am
@CNET – Have you tried using AI on smartphones? What important tasks do you really rely on AI?
In the last 2 years 99% of AI features were just a gimic (for customers). Most of the time, just a smart way to invade your privacy and more efficiently farm you as a user, stealing even more of your data! So great for businesses making these phones, but totally useless for actual customers.
@mnmd-yr7kq
July 15, 2025 at 8:06 am
Don’t enjoy using them, don’t want them on my phone and if I need to use them (for coding and other productivity tasks) I’ll interact with them via an app or an API. I don’t find any of this AI bloat useful at all … I’d be happy to buy a device that hand nothing. What matters to me is how robust the device is, its battery and how repairable it is. Also cost.
@MichaelNomi
July 15, 2025 at 9:40 am
I just use Chat GPT whenever I ask for grammar correction or caption suggestions. But the integration of Siri to ChatGPT is useless hahaha. AI in android and iPhone is useless, specifically on iPhones. It consumes so much storage.
@TechnologyPeriod
July 15, 2025 at 1:35 pm
I see hijab and first thing comes to my mind is uneducated
@fabinhoss
July 15, 2025 at 2:05 pm
When ordinary folks struggle even to connect bluetooth headphones to their phones, AI isn’t a priority….
@danielguerra1880
July 15, 2025 at 4:16 pm
AI works really great when you simply don’t know that is there and its just enhancing the tools that we already use in a daily basis. Is like that phrase that Jony Ive said in the presentation commercial of the iPhone 5s, talking about touch ID: “we believe that technology is at its very best at its most empowering when it simple disappears”.
@MatthiasLehnen
July 15, 2025 at 6:19 pm
Circle to search is a pretty good feature. Gemini has also improved a lot and I like to use it as my personal tour guide when I’m travelling
@laurenslee9134
July 15, 2025 at 6:22 pm
As long as A.I. features are included, if I can find a way to use them, I will.
But I will not pay extra for them.
I already pay for enough services as it is.
@headfirst6227
July 15, 2025 at 6:53 pm
We do care we just don’t have any choice. We are all drowning in corporate manipulation.
@ericbogle9054
July 15, 2025 at 7:19 pm
I only upgrade to a new phone when the one I have is no longer supported by updates. As for AI, I don’t really care for it either.
@anwinalex
July 15, 2025 at 7:54 pm
For most people, it is
Battery
Camera
Display
Performance
Price
@theymon
July 15, 2025 at 9:29 pm
1:15 Correction: a statement from Samsung to android police: They said that every AI feature that Samsung themselves have developed on their phone will be free, any other AI tools like Gemini will obviously be paid for since it’s not owned nor made by Samsung
@Dan-71717
July 15, 2025 at 9:32 pm
I will move to Linux soon so I can afford a laptop with enough storage space since apple is still living in the past with their low starting storage space and crazy increases for extra storage. Ai I can just login to perplexity when I need it
@rockstar6790
July 15, 2025 at 10:03 pm
I recently upgraded from an iPhone 14 Pro Max to an iPhone 16 Pro Max, not because of Apple Intelligence, but because my contract was up for renewal after two years, and I wanted to get off the Lightning Port and move on to USB-C.
But after this, I may not upgrade to the latest one unless something is enticing.
@jaynainani4529
July 16, 2025 at 12:57 am
You don’t care because it’s not real on iPhone. Simple. Isheeps don’t understand
@decommonifyable
July 16, 2025 at 10:51 am
We really going to try and normalize this?
@Oldaker
July 16, 2025 at 1:24 pm
My iPhone 15 not getting apple intelligence seams like a good feature
@BaconFaceMcGee
July 17, 2025 at 11:12 am
Just like my SE 3.
@Kaleb-lf8kf
July 16, 2025 at 1:36 pm
my grapheneos phone has no ai!
@whydoyouneed2know
July 16, 2025 at 3:32 pm
I used to say the same thing but recently I’ve decided I’m going to switch from iPhone to a pixel because there showing real world promise. Their Gemini integration in making calendar events by checking my gmail seems much more practical to any of the stupid Apple AI stuff rolling out.
@gino0612
July 16, 2025 at 6:06 pm
Smarter Siri will be released in Neveruary.
@kunalsharma5210
July 16, 2025 at 10:02 pm
Still using my iPhone 11 pro max. 😂..I’ll probably use it for another year. I don’t have that ‘must have the latest’ itch. 😅
@Claude-tj6ud
July 16, 2025 at 11:48 pm
I would like to find AI useful. I tried. But no.
@the_big_al_01
July 17, 2025 at 12:23 am
My main phone is iPhone SE 2016 and got an iPad for all other stuff. So all I care abt is the built in stuff and fitting into my pocket LOL
@erlienfrommars
July 17, 2025 at 5:51 am
I’d upgrade to a new phone without AI, but it’s now became a shovelware that’s forced down everyone’s throats so the tech bros would Keep their stocks up.
@raktimmazumdar5794
July 17, 2025 at 7:04 am
I have recently bought iphone 16 pro and first thing I did is to turn the AI off… I can do all my AI stuffs in my laptop.. no need to use phone for that …. for me the most important thing is UI… I want smooth simple UI and good Camera and battery… that’s it. AND also I want my phone to be simple and last long…
@GWillWin
July 17, 2025 at 7:49 am
Dont care because normal intelligent people dont really need it. I mean why would anyone with anyone with ANY common sense think that they need ARTIFICIAL intelligence when they have real intelligence?
@JimKanaris
July 17, 2025 at 8:11 am
Unmoved. Thanks for this reporting!
@sarcasmpro
July 17, 2025 at 8:15 am
I haven’t even used all the features of my phone yet 😢 We got proper smartphones with useful features like 10 years ago and now they want people to use AI to do everything. These companies need to slow down 😂😂😂😂
@BaconFaceMcGee
July 17, 2025 at 11:17 am
My dad’s flip phone doesn’t have AI!😂 And I am totally fine with my SE3 not having Apple Intelligence!
@Mnnyquintero
July 17, 2025 at 4:50 pm
Phoen already matured. The only thing I use ai is for the grammar check capabilities. That’s it