New survey shows you really don’t care about AI features on your phone

It seems like almost every Android phone these days has AI functionality. From writing tools and summarization smarts to transcription and general chatbots, there’s no shortage of AI-driven features today.

Colleague Andy Walker recently wrote about disabling the AICore app on his phone. He also included a poll in his article, asking whether readers used AI features on their phones. Here’s what you told us.

This survey garnered just over 6,600 votes, and one choice stands tall above all others. Almost 33% of respondents chose “No, I actively avoid AI features.” We can understand why some readers avoid AI features on their phones. There are ethical and environmental concerns regarding generative AI in the first place, but we’ve also seen half-baked tools like some image generators, weather summaries, and notification summaries.

Reader rayan.honor had an interesting take on AI features:

They are more like prototypes than finished software. Their quality reminds me of a CD ‘1000 games on one disc’.

Roughly 20.2% of polled readers chose “I try to avoid AI features, but I still do so once in a while.” I’m guessing these readers aren’t happy with the quality of AI tools in the first place, but that they sometimes deliver good results. It’s also possible that these respondents use AI features sparingly as they’re otherwise opposed to them due to the aforementioned concerns.

Meanwhile, ~19.7% of polled readers voted for “Yes, but only specialized features to perform specific tasks (image editing, etc).” That’s understandable, as AI tools can do handle some tasks very well. But it’s clear these users aren’t all-in on AI features.

Otherwise, ~14% of respondents aren’t actually sure if the features they’re using are AI features. That’s a great point, as not every AI tool features “AI” branding. Finally, just ~12% of polled readers voted for “Yes, I use AI features every day as often as possible.”

Another way of looking at these poll results is that ~53% of respondents try to avoid using AI features. This suggests that Android OEMs either need to improve their AI features, or focus on other features.