Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon says this year will be the year of AI agents, and that by 2028 the company expects meaningful workloads to move away from phones and onto new AI-first devices. In his view, the shift will not be gradual. Within five years, he said, AI consumer devices will be dominant and serving hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Amon made the forecast in an interview with Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell for the podcast Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors of Industry, putting qcom at the center of a fast-moving bet on always-on personal AI. He said smart glasses are the device of the future because they sit closest to the eyes and ears, and added that pendants, pins, jewelry and other fashionable forms of AI personal assistants will also be worn widely in that timeframe. “The center of your digital life will no longer be the phone, it’s the agent,” he said.
The comments land as Qualcomm tries to define its role beyond the smartphone market that made it a powerhouse. The company says its Snapdragon chips already power PCs, Android devices, ear buds, cars and data centers, and it is partnering with OpenAI and Meta on future devices. Fortune described Qualcomm as a $200 billion company, underscoring the scale of the business behind Amon’s argument that the next computing platform may be smaller, more personal and far more constant than the phone in a pocket.
What stands out is the speed of the transition Amon is describing. He is not talking about a distant research project. He is saying the shift begins this year, becomes visible by 2028 and, within five years, could put hundreds of millions of AI devices into everyday use. That is a direct challenge to the idea that the smartphone remains the center of consumer computing, and it suggests Qualcomm is preparing for a market where the most important device may be the one people barely notice they are wearing.
For investors watching the company’s next move, the question is not whether AI will spread across devices, but which form factor wins first and how quickly consumers accept it. Qualcomm has already built business across several categories, from PCs to cars, and its push into AI companions signals that the company sees the next wave of growth outside the phone itself.
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