Qualcomm CEO: AI Agents Will Be the New Apps, With 40 Devices on the Way

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon predicts the end of the familiar mobile app era: AI agents will take their place and carry out users' tasks on their own. The company, meanwhile, is preparing 40 new devices focused on local artificial intelligence.

Agents are the new apps

Speaking on the CNBC podcast The Tech Download, Amon put forward a provocative thesis about the near future of technology. In his view, app icons on a smartphone's home screen are a fading paradigm for interacting with the digital world. Users will no longer open dozens of disconnected services by hand, re-explaining their context each time.

"Agents will be the new apps," the Qualcomm CEO said.

One important caveat: apps will not disappear. Amon stressed that they are "not dead," but their role will change. Instead of standalone products with their own UI, they will become "building blocks", tools that an AI agent manages in the background. The user sets a task in natural language, and the agent decides which services to use and in what order.

This fundamentally changes what a "software product" means. Today, developers put the interface at the center of the user experience. In an agent-driven future, the quality of the API and the ability of a tool to be called and integrated into someone else's agent context matter more. The user-facing UI becomes a supporting element rather than the main one.

The smartphone loses its central role

Amon's second thesis is even more radical. The phone, he says, will stop being the main digital device in a person's life. A smartphone-centric model will give way to a distributed ecosystem: AI features will live in smartwatches, AR glasses, cars, laptops and smart homes, anywhere there is a chip.

For Qualcomm, this forecast fits neatly with the diversification strategy the company has pursued over the past several years. Snapdragon chips already power Windows laptops (the Copilot+ PC line), automotive systems and IoT devices. Mobile is still the largest segment, but no longer the only one.

Qualcomm is also putting particular emphasis on local AI processing: the model runs directly on the device, without a constant connection to the cloud. This brings three advantages at once: fast response times, full data privacy and the ability to work without internet. Apple and Google are moving in the same direction, but Qualcomm competes at the hardware level rather than the software platform level.

Forty new devices

In the coming months, Qualcomm and its partners will announce 40 new devices built on the company's chips. They will come from leading manufacturers, from major brands to niche players. The large-scale launch spans several categories:

• Copilot+ PC laptops on Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus
• Next-generation smartphones with expanded on-device AI capabilities
• Wearables and AR/VR headsets
• Automotive infotainment systems
• Smart speakers and IoT devices

This breadth is a strategic statement. Qualcomm is positioning itself as a supplier of "AI brains" for the entire ecosystem, not just the mobile market. If agents really do run on every device, the chip that powers them becomes a key competitive asset, and this is where Qualcomm intends to take a leading position.

"Agents are the new apps," —

Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm, CNBC podcast The Tech Download

What this means

Amon's forecast is a signal to every market participant to change strategy. Developers will have to think not only about the interface but also about how their product integrates into the agent ecosystem and becomes a callable tool. Super-apps that have absorbed dozens of functions will come under pressure: an agent will be able to pick the best tool for each specific task.

Qualcomm, for its part, is betting on becoming the infrastructure layer of this future, at the hardware level, regardless of which platform or agent wins.