The news: Smartphone makers and developers may be misplacing their focus on on-device AI as consumer interest nose-dives from already low levels.

• Only 3% of smartphone owners are willing to pay extra for AI features, per CNET’s 2025 Smartphone Innovation Survey, down from 6% in September.
• 29% don’t think AI features are helpful and don’t want to see more AI tools on their phones, up from 25%.
• AI integrations would motivate just 11% of consumers to upgrade their phones.

Concerns abound: Many smartphone owners don’t know how to use AI or are too concerned about privacy to use it.

• 41% of consumers are worried about their privacy when using AI on a phone, up from 34% in September.
• 20% don’t know how to use AI features, and 14% don’t find them useful.

Overhyped? While tech companies are touting on-device capabilities like Apple’s Genmoji and Adobe’s Firefly, creative tools may be overpromoted relative to how often consumers actually use AI.

• Only 8% use AI image creation tools on their phones, and 7% use AI to edit photos, per CNET.
• 13% said they use summarization and text writing features.

AI companies aren’t the only ones misjudging consumer habits. Nearly 80% of AI specialists think consumers use the tech several times a day, per Pew Research, but only 27% of consumers do.

Making inroads with assistants: Smartphone users are accustomed to voice assistant features on their phones, but daily engagement with Siri and Gemini is minimal.

• 61% of iPhone users interact with Siri and 41% of Pixel owners use Gemini, which is much higher adoption than general AI features.
• Just 10% and 9% of Siri and Gemini users, respectively, access the assistants on a daily basis.

In spite of minimal daily usage, iPhone owners may be more willing to open their wallets for AI assistants than other smartphone users.

• 15% would pay a monthly fee for a “smarter Siri.”
• Just 4% would pay between $6 and $10 per month for an improved voice assistant, and 1% would spend more than $15.

Our take: Enterprise customers may be a better bet for on-device AI adoption considering public consumers’ disinterest and privacy concerns.

To boost use among consumers, smartphone makers could focus on easy-to-use features that are accessible to those new to AI and roll out AI upgrades incrementally rather than all at once to avoid AI overload.