Amazon has blocked Meta's AI assistant Muse from shopping on its e-commerce platform — the clearest signal yet that the battle to control the next digital interface, the one that succeeds the smartphone, is already underway.

The stakes extend far beyond device sales. What comes next decides who controls the gateway to the customer, and who takes a cut of the money they spend. OpenAI chief Sam Altman has openly questioned the smartphone's future, arguing that current gadgets are ill-suited to artificial intelligence.

Yet the smartphone is not collapsing. Apple's iPhone pulled in $54.3 billion in sales in the three months to June 2026, a 22% rise on the year before. Unit shipments also climbed 15%, according to estimates from the tech analysis company IDC. For comparison, the smartphone overtook PC shipments just three and a half years after the iPhone launched in 2007 — any decline now will be a slow burn, not a cliff.

Which technologies are lining up to challenge it?

Smart glasses hold pole position among challengers, but they carry real drawbacks: added weight, limited battery life, and, frankly, awkward design. One independent tester burned through half the battery in Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses in just an hour of heavy video use.

The sales gap tells the story. Analysts forecast 15 million pairs of smart glasses will ship this year — a drop in the ocean next to more than a billion smartphones. That imbalance explains why a combination of technologies, rather than a single device, will most likely knock the smartphone off its perch.

Apple's AirPods already offer hands-free access to Siri, and a recent AI upgrade lets some users hold chatbot-style conversations through the earphones. Apple is also reportedly developing AirPods with built-in cameras, giving Siri eyes as well as ears: a user could look at ingredients and ask for a recipe, or receive walking directions based on their surroundings, without touching a phone.

Meta, meanwhile, plans to launch the Muse Charm, a stand-alone device small enough to hang from a keychain, with a screen and voice controls providing access to the Muse assistant. Muse itself has exploded since its September launch, quickly becoming the most downloaded app in the U.S.

Where will the battle for control be fought?

The fight over the next interface will run across three fronts: hardware, distribution, and intelligence.

• Hardware. Apple brings a $146 billion cash and investment pile, deep engineering capability, and 2.5 billion active devices. Huawei and Samsung remain contenders.
• Distribution. Amazon has upgraded Alexa with AI, enabling natural conversations and tasks such as booking restaurants; Alexa already connects to more than 600 million devices. Google's AI-powered search summaries reach more than 2.5 billion people monthly, and Android powers more than 3 billion devices worldwide. Meta could become a powerful middleman, taking a cut of transactions handled by its assistant, from shopping to travel bookings. Amazon has likewise considered taking a cut of purchases handled by Alexa — even as it blocks Muse from its platform.
• Intelligence. OpenAI and Anthropic lead the frontier labs. OpenAI is also muscling into hardware: it acquired Io, the startup led by Sir Jony Ive, for $6.5 billion. The former Apple design chief and OpenAI are developing AI-powered devices that could give ChatGPT a direct route to consumers, bypassing other companies' distribution.

What is the commercial prize?

Hardware and distribution may matter most, because AI models themselves are likely to become interchangeable commodities. History rewards whoever cracks the interface. IBM still controlled three-quarters of the mainframe market by the mid-1990s; Microsoft then built a monopoly in PC operating systems, holding roughly 90% of that market through the 1990s; Apple then collected nearly $210 billion in iPhone sales in 2025 alone.

The wider effects are harder to foresee. Few predicted the smartphone would upend the taxi industry. Insurance, telecoms and banking now face similar exposure — especially if AI agents start shopping around on customers' behalf, killing the friction of comparing providers and switching that keeps customers tied to policies, bank accounts and phone contracts.

What should business leaders do now?

The biggest mistake would be trying to build the next interface yourself. Unless technology is your core business, leave that fight to the giants. Sitting on the sidelines is equally dangerous: if AI agents become the new gateway to your customers, you lose control of how they find, compare and buy your products.

The practical test is concrete. Companies should probe whether AI agents can locate their products, compare them with rivals, and complete purchases — without the customer ever landing on their website.

The smartphone's days are far from numbered. But companies that fail to prepare for what comes next risk ceding their customer relationships to whoever controls the next interface.