Key Points

For the study, Gartner defined GenAI smartphones as devices equipped with a built-in neural engine or neural processing unit (NPU) capable of running small language models.

The forecast covers both premium smartphones and basic smartphones (under $350) but excludes utility smartphones as they are not expected to have NPU capabilities in future.

"Currently, most users still rely on text or touch for all tasks, and voice interactions remain limited in scope. However, as conversational AI becomes more natural in the future, users are expected to become more comfortable with AI as a proactive digital companion, rather than just a reactive tool," said Ranjit Atwal, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner.

“The broad use of new NPUs in smartphones will allow GenAI models to run faster and more efficiently, requiring users to upgrade to the latest smartphone hardware for optimized experiences,” Atwal added.

With all mobile vendors increasingly integrating on-device GenAI models and applications, end-user spending on GenAI smartphones is expected to total $393.3 billion in 2026, an increase of 32 per cent from 2025.

The research firm forecasted that 100 per cent of premium smartphones will feature GenAI capabilities by 2029. It said that, in 2025, almost all premium GenAI smartphones will include NPUs, with 41 per cent of basic GenAI smartphones featuring NPUs.

On-device NPUs performance levels exceeding 40 tera operations per second (TOPS) will become the standard in premium GenAI smartphones by 2027, according to Gartner.

Such a performance level will enable real-time execution of complex multimodal AI workloads without excessive power consumption, it noted.

- IANS