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'AI is the new UI'. Qualcomm’s bold vision for how we use our devices could lead to the death of the app - and I’m not sure how I feel about that

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At Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelona , AI is the hottest topic on people’s lips.

Qualcomm has been at the forefront of on-device AI hardware for a while now.

Durga Malladi , the SVP and General Manager of Technology Planning and Edge Solutions at Qualcomm, talks about the rise of so-called AI agents’.

Malladi likens the arrival of AI agents to the shift from using apps using websites to using apps .

Qualcomm is confident that agentic AI agents will become commonplace in the future.

But I think this is a significantly larger potential shift than that - and if the past is anything to go off, those sorts of massive changes to the established norms risk becoming a turn-off for potential consumers.

And what about free software that relies on in-app ad revenue to turn a profit?.