Key takeaways:

• A quarter of smartphone owners (25%) do not find AI features useful, 45% are unwilling to pay a monthly subscription fee for AI features, and 34% have privacy concerns.
• Just over half (52%) of smartphone owners have no interest in buying a foldable phone.
• The biggest motivation for US adult smartphone owners to upgrade their devices is longer battery life (61%), followed by more storage (46%) and better camera features (38%). Only 18% say their main motivation is AI integrations.

AI has been the new hotness for some time. Manufacturers like Apple, Google and Samsung continue to put so much emphasis on AI features in their latest devices, but is the feature that important to real smartphone users? A CNET survey found that a quarter of smartphone owners don’t find these features particularly useful, and only 18% say AI integrations are their main motivation for upgrading their phone.

Look at this: iPhone 16 comes with AI Drama

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In fact, the biggest drivers for buying a new device, according to respondents, are longer battery life (61%), more storage (46%) and better camera features (38%).

This comes as Apple prepares for the public launch of its Apple Intelligence suite of AI features next weekwhich includes features such as a smarter Siri, AI powered writing tools and ChatGPT integration. Apple Intelligence will be available at iPhone 15 Pro models and that iPhone 16 line-up.

Google also leaned heavily on AI features when it unveiled Pixel 9 series in August and spent much of his keynote discusses new Gemini features as Staywhich allows you to have a natural-sounding conversation back and forth with the virtual assistant. And in July Unpacked event, Samsung said similarly Galaxy A.Iwhich can simplify tasks such as translating messages and editing photos.

While these new features rely on generative AI to produce text or images or to enhance digital assistants, AI itself has been embedded in smartphones for years. For example, the phone’s camera uses AI to process images and blur backgrounds in portrait mode, and Siri and Google Assistant have always been AI-based (albeit with less advanced versions of the technology). But because this new wave of AI introduces ways to more explicitly perform tasks on your phone, rather than blending into existing functions, it may take some time for people to warm up to.

AI may soon cost you – and not everyone is sold

As tech giants continue to roll out these AI features, consumers may soon have to pay the price if they want to continue using them. Samsung’s website says its Galaxy AI features “will be provided for free until the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices.” To use the full power of Gemini in Google apps, you need to subscribe Gemini Advanced. And it’s likely that Apple may do so at some point as well charge for some of its AI-powered iPhone features.

Many consumers are not sold. Almost half of smartphone owners say they are not willing to pay extra money to access AI on their phones. That’s not terribly surprising, given how much subscription fatigue is already weighing on people. Another CNET study from April found that US adults spend an average of $91 on subscription services each month. Two-thirds of respondents said at least one of their subscriptions became more expensive in the past year. Therefore, adding another monthly fee may not be so attractive.

Still, there are those eager to harness AI on their phones, with Gen Zers and Millennials the most enthusiastic: 20% of respondents from each generation say they’re excited about AI capabilities and find them useful. Additionally, 15% of Gen Zers and 16% of Millennials use AI on their phones for tasks such as photo editing, image creation, and summarizing or writing text. Additionally, 20% of Gen Zers and 19% of Millennials regularly use an AI tool like ChatGPT or Google Gemini on their smartphones.

Privacy remains a key issue when it comes to AI, with a third (34%) of smartphone owners flagging their concerns in that department. Tech giants have placed a growing emphasis on privacy issues during their AI-focused keynotes. By his seat Worldwide Developers Conference in June, for example, Apple listed many of its AI models run on the devicewhich is generally considered more private, as information does not need to travel over the internet. When a task requires more computing power, the relevant data will be sent to Apple Silicon Serversand that data will not be stored or made available to Apple, the company says.

The biggest reasons to upgrade a phone

With AI being one of the last reasons consumers want to upgrade their smartphones, other considerations such as longer battery life, more storage and better camera capabilities still dominate. Other motivators include phone display and screen size (32%); to maintain the same ecosystem, such as iOS or Android (24%); and phone color (10%).

With the high costs of devices (many flagship phones will cost you anywhere between $800 and $1,200), consumers may not want upgrade their devices as often. According to our survey, 44% say they only get a new device when their current phone breaks or needs to be replaced. Furthermore, 30% hang onto their devices for three years or longer, while 18% upgrade every two years and only 8% get a new phone every year.

Fortunately for consumers, Apple did not implement a price increase with iPhone 16. Still, iPhone users hold on to their devices longer than other smartphone owners; a third will wait three years or more for an upgrade.

The foldable phone hype just isn’t there yet

Companies like Google and Samsung have continued to roll out foldable phones, with the latest being the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and that Galaxy Z Flip and Bay 6respective. But consumers are still lukewarm to the concept of a foldable handheld device. Just over half (52%) of smartphone owners say they are not interested in buying a foldable phone, while 13% say they would be interested sometime in the next two years.

That gives Apple, which has yet to enter the foldable phone space, the opportunity to capitalize on that interest. Experts have long speculated that a foldable iPhone could be what it takes to spur wider adoption of foldable smartphones. But it could be years before that happens, if it ever does.

Methodology

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. The total sample size was 2,484 adults, including 2,387 smartphone owners. Fieldwork was conducted August 28-30, 2024. The survey was conducted online. The numbers have been weighted and are representative of all US adults (aged 18+).