Qualcomm and Meta will bring on-device AI to phones next year

If there is one reason why digital assistants like Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, Bixby, and Cortana did not take off in a huge way despite its huge potential, it would be the fact that they are pretty slow.

This is because in order to process the requests users were making, it had to be sent to a remote server, meaning users had to wait for the request to go through and for it to be executed. Plus there are other concerns like privacy and security, but Qualcomm and Meta are hoping to address that with 2024's phones.

Both companies have announced that they will be working together to bring on-device AI to phones starting in 2024. This means that the AI will work within the device itself, increasing its speed and also ensuring greater privacy. The AI being used in question will be Llama 2, an open source large language model. According to Qualcomm:

"This will allow customers, partners, and developers to build use cases, such as intelligent virtual assistants, productivity applications, content creation tools, entertainment, and more. These new on-device AI experiences, powered by Snapdragon, can work in areas with no connectivity or even in airplane mode."

That being said, it is still a bit early to tell how this will work out and what kind of features end users can look forward to. We imagine that Meta's own products and services could take advantage of the on-device AI, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

Meta has also confirmed that Microsoft their preferred partner for Llama 2, where it will be supported on Microsoft's Azure and Windows platforms.