<p>Summary: Modernizing existing databases seems to be the priority for almost all businesses in the current business scenario. Legacy codes become hindrances to the digital transformation of a business, especially its maintenance and scaling potential. That’s where a thorough application modernization roadmap comes in handy. Here’s an insight into this. Continuous application modernization is critical &#8230; </p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.netsolutions.com/insights/application-modernization-roadmap/" data-wpel-link="internal">7 Steps to Build an Effective Application Modernization Roadmap</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.netsolutions.com/insights" data-wpel-link="internal">Insights - Web and Mobile Development Services and Solutions</a>.</p>

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While many entrepreneurs are currently facing the harsh reality of a VC funding crunch, Qonto isn’t one of them. The Paris-based business banking startup still has hundreds of millions of cash on hand. And it is using an undisclosed portion of its cash reserve to acquire Regate, an accounting and financial automation platform.Qonto originally started with online business accounts with debit cards specifically tailored for small and medium businesses. Over time, the company expanded its product offering to include invoicing tools, features to manage expenses and plenty of integrations with the fintech ecosystem to facilitate bookkeeping, payment reconciliation, etc.And that modern take on business banking has worked surprisingly well as more than 450,000 companies now have a Qonto account. While France remains Qonto’s main market, the company also acquired its German competitor Penta — and moved Penta’s customers to its own platform — and is also available in Italy and Spain.In 2022, near the peak of the funding frenzy of 2021 and 2022, the company raised a massive €486 million Series D funding round (that’s $529 million at today’s exchange rate). Now, Qonto wants to deliver on its original vision of building an all-in-one finance solution for small and medium businesses.As part of this vision, Qonto is acquiring Regate, a French startup we covered after it raised a €20 million Series A round ($22 million at today’s exchange rate). Regate is an accounting automation software-as-a-service startup.It integrates directly with existing accounting software platforms like Sage, Cegid and ACD so that Regate can focus on financial automation. Regate customers can easily track incoming payments, schedule payments to suppliers, sort through invoices and receipts, and even access their bank accounts from Regate’s interface.Since 2020, Regate managed to attract 10,000 clients — 6,000 of them are already Qonto customers. The company also sells its product to accounting firms directly with 500 firms using Regate.It’s a different go-to-market strategy and product philosophy compared to Pennylane, a newly minted French unicorn that wants to replace legacy accounting software entirely. Pennylane itself now also provides business bank accounts and moving into Qonto’s main product territory.“We have grown our revenue by 3x in 2023,” Regate co-founder Laura Pallier told TechCrunch. But when Qonto approached Regate, they decided to sell the company to reach the next level. “We had a rather intense discussion on the subject . . . We’re convinced that the cockpit approach — with a tool that works for both SMEs and their accountants — makes a lot more sense than multiple products.”With today’s acquisition, Regate’s team of 100 employees will all join Qonto’s current 1,400-people staff under a new business unit focused on financial tools for accountants. At first, there will be new integrations between both platforms.After a while, Regate will be integrated in Qonto directly to improve several accounting automation features of Qonto, such as invoicing, accounts payables, accounts receivables, etc. As for accounting firms, they’ll also act as a new sales channel for Qonto.“The idea is that these two platforms will gradually become one. But it’s going to be a gradual process, and we’ll always be very careful to maintain the customer experience for both corporate clients and accounting firms,” Pallier said.While Regate’s acquisition is only the second acquisition in Qonto’s history, it’s most likely not the last one. In part because its executives are happy with how Penta’s integration went, but also because of its current opportunity window.“We happen to have a planetary alignment. It would be a professional mistake not to look [at potential acquisitions]. We’re not the best at everything. So we should also stay humble and work with experts in their respective fields,” Qonto co-founder and president Steve Anavi told TechCrunch at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week.“We have an in-house team that looks at opportunities. In the best-case scenario, we sign a deal. But even in the worst-case scenario, we can become partners because we’ve learned to know each other a little bit better over a very short process,” he added.Qonto finds itself in a different position from Payfit, another French unicorn (or former unicorn) that provides a software-as-a-service tool focused on payroll. Yesterday, Les Échos reported that Payfit plans to lay off 14% of the company, or 110 employees.Why are things looking better for Qonto? “We have a healthy business model. It means that when we acquire a customer, after a few months it’s a profitable customer. This is mainly because they pay — we don’t have any free offering. So, compared to a lot of fintech companies or startups in general that have a free offering and then try to upsell customers, we haven’t made that choice,” Qonto co-founder and CEO Alexandre Prot told TechCrunch.“The second element is that we raised a very large amount of money two years ago. And we were a bit lucky because the timing was right,” he added. Finally, rising interest rates have also created a new revenue stream for the company. And given Qonto’s scale, the company is handling very large sums of money on behalf of its customers.For these reasons, Qonto has plenty of cash to spend on acquisitions. As many fintech startups are struggling to raise a new funding round, Qonto could become a consolidator in the space. And we might be at the beginning of this consolidation phase.

Flush with cash, French fintech unicorn Qonto acquires Regate | TechCrunch. While France remains Qonto’s main market, the company also acquired its German competitor Penta — and moved Penta’s customers to its own platform — and is also available in Italy and Spain

TechCrunch

Flush with cash, French fintech unicorn Qonto acquires Regate

Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Reviews ethics statement    The two sides head to Himachal Pradesh for the final encounter of the series.  With the hosts now holding an unassailable 3-1 lead, England have pride to play for as they take on India in the fifth and final Test of what has been an entertaining series. After the tourists threatened to pull off a famous victory in the fourth Test, India fought back to seal the series with a five-wicket win on the fourth day in Ranchi, with Shubman Gill and Dhruv Jurel seeing the hosts home with an unbroken stand of 72. That defeat ensured England suffered their first series loss under the Bazball regime helmed by coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes. The visitors will now be determined to make amends and end things on a high as the series concludes in the picturesque setting of the Himalayan foothills. This final encounter sees Mark Wood replaces Ollie Robinson in the only lineup change for England, in a match that'll see batsman Jonny Bairstow play his 100th Test for the tourists. Middle order batsman KL Rahul is ruled out for India, but the hosts are set to be boosted by the return of paceman Jasprit Bumrah. Below, we'll outline the best live TV streaming services to use to watch the second match of the series, no matter where you are in the world. Jasprit Bumrah is India's joint-highest wicket-taker in this series, having claimed 17 wickets from the first three games.India take on England in the fifth and final match of this Test series at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamshala from Thursday, March 7, until Monday, March 11. Play is set to start each day at 9:30 a.m. IST local time in India -- that's 4 a.m. GMT in the UK, 3 p.m. AEDT in Australia, and at 11 p.m. ET or 8 p.m. PT in the US.If you find yourself unable to view this Test match locally, you may need a different way to watch the action -- that's where using a VPN can come in handy. A VPN is also the best way to encrypt your traffic and stop your ISP from throttling your speeds, and it's also a great idea if you're traveling, find yourself connected to a Wi-Fi network and want to add an extra layer of privacy for your devices and logins.With a VPN, you're able to virtually change your location on your phone, tablet or laptop to get access to the game. Most VPNs, like our Editors' Choice, ExpressVPN, make it really easy to do this.Using a VPN to watch or stream sports is legal in any country where VPNs are legal, including the US, UK and Australia, as long as you have a legitimate subscription to the service you're streaming. You should be sure your VPN is set up correctly to prevent leaks: Even where VPNs are legal, the streaming service may terminate the account of anyone it deems to be circumventing correctly applied blackout restrictions.Looking for other options? Be sure to check out some of the other great VPN deals taking place right now.If you're looking for a secure and dependable VPN, check out our Editors' Choice: ExpressVPN. It's fast, works on multiple devices and provides stable streams. It's normally $13 a month, but it currently costs less overall to go for a 12-month subscription, where each month shakes out to $8.32.Note that ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.This fifth Test in the series will be available to watch live on dedicated cricket streaming service Willow TV.Dedicated cricket streaming service Willow TV is available from a broad range of cable providers, including Spectrum, Dish and Xfinity. The service is also available via OTT provider Sling TV across a range of devices. There are options to pay just for Willow (pricing starts at $10 a month or $80 for a year's subscription) or add it to your existing Sling plan.The fifth Test between India and England will be available to watch in the host nation on sport network Sports 18. That means you'll be able to watch for free via its OTT platform JioCinema.  Every ball of this Test series is streaming live and for free on JioCinema in India. The service has dedicated apps for a wide range of mobile devices and platforms, but you'll need an Indian phone number to sign up.This series is being shown exclusively live in the UK by TNT Sports.  You can access TNT Sports in exactly the same way as its predecessor BT Sport, including via Sky Q as a TV package, as well as the option of streaming online. It costs £30 either way and comes in a package that includes Discovery Plus' library of documentary content.Pay-TV network Foxtel and its streaming platform Kayo are showing the fifth Test match of this series Down Under.A Kayo Sports subscription starts at AU$25 a month and lets you stream on one screen, while its Premium tier costs AU$35 a month for simultaneous viewing on up to three devices.The service gives you access to a wide range of sports, including F1, NRL, NFL, NHL and MLB, and there are no lock-in contracts. Better still, if you're a new customer, you can take advantage of a one-week Kayo Sports free trial.

Cricket Livestream: How to Watch India vs. England, 5th Test From Anywhere. This fifth Test in the series will be available to watch live on dedicated cricket streaming service Willow TV

CNET

Cricket Livestream: How to Watch India vs. England, 5th Test From Anywhere     - CNET

AI, or artificial intelligence, is technology that attempts to simulate human cognitive function. AI has made its way into the software development space in a number of ways. Visit the AI article list to expand your AI knowledge.Learn MoreObservability is a way for development teams in an organization to view their program state. Failing to provide developers with insight into their tools and processes could lead to unaddressed bugs and even system failures. Read about the latest observability content hereLearn MoreIn the past, the CI/CD pipeline was simply a place to integrate code. Developers would write their code in GitHub, pass it through the pipeline, and then deploy it. The pipeline has become a much more critical piece of the software delivery lifecycle today.Learn MoreModern cloud-native applications, often leverage microservices, containers, APIs, infrastructure-as-code and more to enable speed in app development and deploymentLearn MoreSponsored By:Always On, Always FastDeploy Distributed PostgreSQL in just 90 SecondsLearn MoreAre TuringBots Up for the AI Autonomous Testing Challenge?Join Forrester’s Diego Lo Guidice to learn about the transformative power of AI in the software development lifecycleDec 6th at 10am CST Register HereMobile App Testing involves analyzing mobile apps for functionality, usability, visual appeal, and consistency across multiple mobile devices. It helps ensure an optimal user experience, irrespective of the device used to access the app.Learn MoreToday’s distributed software environments incorporate a variety of APIs with every interface your software touches, from mobile to microservices. Each API has to be continuously tested and verified to ensure your software functions as it should. Parasoft’s API testing platform makes quick, efficient, and intelligent work of such requirements.Learn MoreEnsure your application’s resilience, and make sure your software performs as expected under diverse operating conditions. (sponsored by Parasoft)Learn More DevSecOps is the DevOps community’s approach to bringing security into the development lifecycle. Businesses want to deliver software, but cannot afford to release unreliable or insecure applications— therefore security needs to be baked in much sooner than it has traditionally been.Learn MoreSecuring an application is just as important as building it in the first place. As data becomes more valuable, there are more people who want to steal it and use it for their own personal gain. Making sure applications are indeed secure has always been a challenge, as hackers try to stay one step ahead of defenders.Learn MoreIn 2023, there was an 18% decline in the number of open-source projects that are considered to be “actively maintained.” This is according to Sonatype’s Annual State of the Software Supply Chain Report.Learn MoreDevelopment Managers need a different type of content than developers… They need to know what platforms, tools, trends, and issues they should be thinking about. SD Times delivers those unique topics hereLearn MoreAgile software development has been around since the 1990s, but didn’t get the name until the famous meeting of 17 renowned software development thought leaders at Snowbird, Utah resulted in an Agile Manifesto. The idea behind Agile software development is to reduce time to market by enabling faster iterations of smaller segments of software.Learn MoreValue stream management involves people in the organization to examine workflows and other processes to ensure they are deriving the maximum value from their efforts while eliminating waste — of resources, time and assets. It is the practice that truly brings the business side and IT side together as partners in creating value for the organization.Learn MoreLearn MoreDevOps is a methodology in the software development and IT industry. Used as a set of practices and tools, DevOps integrates and automates the work of software development and IT operations as a means for improving and shortening the systems development life cycle.Learn MoreMicroservices define the latest iteration of a service-oriented architecture, under which applications are not written as a monolith but are built by joining discreet components — bits of functionality, called services — via application programming interfaces (APIs).Learn MoreAI, or artificial intelligence, is technology that attempts to simulate human cognitive function. AI has made its way into the software development space in a number of ways. Visit the AI article list to expand your AI knowledge.Learn MoreValue stream management involves people in the organization to examine workflows and other processes to ensure they are deriving the maximum value from their efforts while eliminating waste — of resources, time and assets. It is the practice that truly brings the business side and IT side together as partners in creating value for the organization.Learn MoreCopado is releasing a new tool designed to make it easier to test Salesforce applications. Copado Explorer integrates into CI/CD pipelines and automates a significant portion of the testing process. As manual testers are executing their normal activities, Copado Explorer works in the background to create test scripts using its generative AI scripting assistant, Test Copilot. These scripts can then be added into regression suites, shortening release cycles and expanding test coverage. It includes traceability features that allow users to understand exactly where an issue is coming from. It tracks defects against normal Salesforce features as well as user stories, and includes support for Jira and Azure DevOps. Testers can also record the test steps they went through and share that with developers, which results in fewer feedback loops being needed. In addition, Copado Explorer includes annotation and markup tools that allow non-technical subject matter experts to weigh in on issues, which provides additional context to the development team who is responsible for fixing them.“Release quality is a leading driver of risk, cost and speed within the software development life cycle,” said Esko Hannula, senior vice president of product management at Copado. “Copado Explorer makes it easy to automate the manual testing process, drastically reducing the time and effort typically required in traditional testing methods and improving both release velocity and quality. This launch not only underscores Copado’s commitment to innovation, but also sets a new benchmark in facilitating streamlined, effective, and collaborative software testing.”                      AI, Copado, Salesforce, testing                                                  Jenna Barron is News Editor of SD Times. She covers Microsoft, data, programming languages, and UI frameworks and libraries. She likes tabletop gaming, climbing, and knitting.                        Ready to subscribe to SD Times? It's just a click away!Subscribe

Copado releases new automated testing solution for Salesforce users - SD Times. Learn MoreValue stream management involves people in the organization to examine workflows and other processes to ensure they are deriving the maximum value from their efforts while eliminating waste — of resources, time and assets.

SD Times

Copado releases new automated testing solution for Salesforce users

AI, or artificial intelligence, is technology that attempts to simulate human cognitive function. AI has made its way into the software development space in a number of ways. Visit the AI article list to expand your AI knowledge.Learn MoreObservability is a way for development teams in an organization to view their program state. Failing to provide developers with insight into their tools and processes could lead to unaddressed bugs and even system failures. Read about the latest observability content hereLearn MoreIn the past, the CI/CD pipeline was simply a place to integrate code. Developers would write their code in GitHub, pass it through the pipeline, and then deploy it. The pipeline has become a much more critical piece of the software delivery lifecycle today.Learn MoreModern cloud-native applications, often leverage microservices, containers, APIs, infrastructure-as-code and more to enable speed in app development and deploymentLearn MoreSponsored By:Always On, Always FastDeploy Distributed PostgreSQL in just 90 SecondsLearn MoreAre TuringBots Up for the AI Autonomous Testing Challenge?Join Forrester’s Diego Lo Guidice to learn about the transformative power of AI in the software development lifecycleDec 6th at 10am CST Register HereMobile App Testing involves analyzing mobile apps for functionality, usability, visual appeal, and consistency across multiple mobile devices. It helps ensure an optimal user experience, irrespective of the device used to access the app.Learn MoreToday’s distributed software environments incorporate a variety of APIs with every interface your software touches, from mobile to microservices. Each API has to be continuously tested and verified to ensure your software functions as it should. Parasoft’s API testing platform makes quick, efficient, and intelligent work of such requirements.Learn MoreEnsure your application’s resilience, and make sure your software performs as expected under diverse operating conditions. (sponsored by Parasoft)Learn More DevSecOps is the DevOps community’s approach to bringing security into the development lifecycle. Businesses want to deliver software, but cannot afford to release unreliable or insecure applications— therefore security needs to be baked in much sooner than it has traditionally been.Learn MoreSecuring an application is just as important as building it in the first place. As data becomes more valuable, there are more people who want to steal it and use it for their own personal gain. Making sure applications are indeed secure has always been a challenge, as hackers try to stay one step ahead of defenders.Learn MoreIn 2023, there was an 18% decline in the number of open-source projects that are considered to be “actively maintained.” This is according to Sonatype’s Annual State of the Software Supply Chain Report.Learn MoreDevelopment Managers need a different type of content than developers… They need to know what platforms, tools, trends, and issues they should be thinking about. SD Times delivers those unique topics hereLearn MoreAgile software development has been around since the 1990s, but didn’t get the name until the famous meeting of 17 renowned software development thought leaders at Snowbird, Utah resulted in an Agile Manifesto. The idea behind Agile software development is to reduce time to market by enabling faster iterations of smaller segments of software.Learn MoreValue stream management involves people in the organization to examine workflows and other processes to ensure they are deriving the maximum value from their efforts while eliminating waste — of resources, time and assets. It is the practice that truly brings the business side and IT side together as partners in creating value for the organization.Learn MoreLearn MoreDevOps is a methodology in the software development and IT industry. Used as a set of practices and tools, DevOps integrates and automates the work of software development and IT operations as a means for improving and shortening the systems development life cycle.Learn MoreMicroservices define the latest iteration of a service-oriented architecture, under which applications are not written as a monolith but are built by joining discreet components — bits of functionality, called services — via application programming interfaces (APIs).Learn MoreAI, or artificial intelligence, is technology that attempts to simulate human cognitive function. AI has made its way into the software development space in a number of ways. Visit the AI article list to expand your AI knowledge.Learn MoreValue stream management involves people in the organization to examine workflows and other processes to ensure they are deriving the maximum value from their efforts while eliminating waste — of resources, time and assets. It is the practice that truly brings the business side and IT side together as partners in creating value for the organization.Learn MoreGenerative AI has taken the enterprise world by storm throughout 2023 – and for good reason. From a digital transformation perspective, it has the potential to amplify efficiency to new heights at a time when it’s needed most.Most enterprise digital transformation efforts today fail. A recent Gartner report found that nearly 70% of CFOs believe digital spending is underperforming against expected outcomes. The root cause is a disconnect between those outcomes and the software teams’ capacity to deliver them. Planview’s independently commissioned Project to Product 2023 State of the Industry Report found that business leaders believe IT teams in charge of digital transformation efforts can deliver 10x more than their actual capacity. Only 8% of IT and software development plans are ultimately executed, while 40% of digital innovation work is wasted.The simple answer for this inefficiency is disconnected and disparate data. Most organizations leverage a plethora of tools to deliver digital transformation at scale. From Jira and GitHub to GitLab and Azure DevOps, these systems all play a critical role across the end-to-end software development lifecycle. But here’s the catch — none of them are integrated or aligned. Value streams with minimal interoperability cause bottlenecks that hinder digital transformation from succeeding. Data integration and alignment is critical.Enterprise digital transformation is nearing a new era of opportunity amid the rise of generative AI. Because generative AI’s large language models (LLMs) are domain agnostic and don’t reside in any single system, it has unrivaled potential to minimize wasted workflows when integrated with Strategic Portfolio Management and Value Stream Management technologies. The global digital transformation market size is expected to exceed $7 trillion by 2032. Even a 5-to-10% reduction in waste is more than enough to move the needle. The time to act is now.Effectively harnessing generative AI’s power to minimize wasted work first requires a common semantic layer of data. Fusing datasets from heterogeneous systems into a normalized data platform creates an essential foundation for optimizing the flow of value. Once that holistic data foundation is in place, organizations can then engineer prompts that train generative AI LLMs to produce impactful prescriptive insights, identify high-risk workflows, and refine resource allocations. This removes a lot of the drudgery from software team planning processes, essentially automating the fundamental aspects of value stream management with AI-powered productivity.Another prescription could be identifying various underlying dependencies between different product or project initiatives that are causing significant delays — leading the organization to add direct resource capacity or rebalance capacity between teams based on what the data is surfacing. This level of acute data-driven decision-making relative to capacity and allocation helps align financial investments to high-priority projects, accelerating time to market for initiatives with the greatest ROI.Organizational alignment is critical to leveraging generative AI for digital transformation success. It’s important to remember that technology is only as powerful as your ability to deploy it. For generative AI to effectively accelerate value, it’s imperative to eliminate the “black box” that exists between business outcomes and software development. An organization’s business and technology functions must be operating in unison. By synchronizing all the tools, processes and metrics associated with software development and delivery, organizations can optimize decision-making across portfolios, value streams and DevOps teams to link digital transformation capital allocation to impactful business outcomes.This is where converging objectives and key results (OKRs) across strategic portfolio management, value stream management, and agile planning are worth their weight in gold. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the generative AI prompts are – they are incapable of achieving desired outcomes and driving digital transformation without a shared overarching mission. Universal alignment connects gaps between the technology and business facets of the organization with real-time visibility that provides more intelligence, predictions, and prescriptions. By integrating these actionable insights from portfolio management, enterprise agile planning, and value stream management into a single source of truth, a system of record, cross-functional teams have a clear roadmap for transforming ideas into outcomes.It’s no secret that the ongoing generative AI hype over the past 10 months has sparked valid concerns about its ability to replace human workers across industries. However, in the context of digital transformation, we shouldn’t think about the future with a narrow “human or machine” mindset. It’s really about humans plus machines. Applying AI-powered technology to augment manual workflows is what will deliver the greatest impact on digital innovation in the years to come.                        AI, data, generative AI, planview, value stream                                                  Razat Gaurav is the CEO of Planview.                        Ready to subscribe to SD Times? It's just a click away!Subscribe

Data integration and alignment will dictate generative AI’s impact on digital transformation - SD Times. Learn MoreValue stream management involves people in the organization to examine workflows and other processes to ensure they are deriving the maximum value from their efforts while eliminating waste — of resources, time and assets.

Data integration and alignment will dictate generative AI’s impact on digital transformation

At MWC 2024, I saw firsthand how AI is fundamentally reshaping current and future devices, from phones to robots.  An AI-generated face on a robot running an AI chatbot.At Mobile World Congress last week, the show floor was abuzz with AI. It was the same at CES two months earlier: The biggest theme of the biggest consumer tech show was that AI suddenly seemed to be part of every single product. But the hype can make it hard to know what we should be excited about, what we should fear and what we should dismiss as a fad.  "Omnipresent ... but also overwhelming." That's how CCS Insight Chief Analyst Ben Wood described the MWC moment. "For many attendees, I felt it was rapidly reaching levels that risked causing AI fatigue."But there was a positive side as well. Said Wood: "The most impressive demos were from companies showing the benefits AI could offer rather than just describing a service or a product as being AI-ready."At last year's MWC, the popular generative AI tool ChatGPT was only around 3 months old, and on-device AI was mostly a twinkle in the eye of the tech companies present. This year, on-device was a reality, and attendees — like me — could experience it on the show floor.I got to experience several demos featuring AI on devices, and the best of them brought artificial intelligence to life in ways I'd never seen before. In many cases, I could see that products we're already familiar with — from smartphones to cars — are getting a new lease on life thanks to AI, with some offerings using the technology in unique ways to set themselves apart from rivals. In other cases, new types of products, like AI-focused wearables and robots, are emerging that have the potential to displace what we know and love.Above all, it was clear that on-device AI isn't a technology for tomorrow's world. It's available right here, right now. And it could impact your decision as to what piece of technology you buy next.One of my biggest takeaways from MWC was that while all tech companies now have a raft of AI tools at their disposal, most are choosing to deploy them in different ways. Take smartphones. Samsung has developed Gauss, its own large language model (the tech that underlies AI chatbots), to focus on translation on the Galaxy S24, whereas Honor uses AI to include eye tracking on its newly unveiled Magic 6 Pro — which I got to try out at its booth. Oppo and Xiaomi, meanwhile, both have on-device generative AI that they're applying to phone cameras and photo editing tools.It goes to show that we're entering a new period of experimentation as tech companies figure out what AI can do, and crucially how it can improve our experience of using their products.Samsung's Y.J. Kim, an executive vice president at the company and head of its language AI team, told reporters at an MWC roundtable that Samsung thought deeply about what sort of AI tools it wanted to deliver to users that would elevate the Galaxy S24 above the basic smartphone experience we've come to expect. "We have to make sure that customers will see some tangible benefits from their day-to-day use of the product or technologies that we develop," he said.Conversely, there's also some crossover in AI tools between devices because of the partners these phone-makers share. As the maker of Android, the operating system used by almost all non-Apple phones, Google is experimenting heavily with AI features. These will be available across phones made by Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, Honor and a host of others.Google used its presence at MWC this year to talk about some of its recently introduced AI features, like Circle to Search, a visual search tool that lets you draw a circle around something you see on screen to search for it.Google's Circle to Search was featured heavily at the company's MWC booth.The other, less visible partner that phone-makers have in common is chipmaker Qualcomm, whose chips were in an entire spectrum of devices at MWC this year. Its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, announced late in 2023, can be found in many of the phones that are now running on-device generative AI.It's been only a year since Qualcomm first showed a basic demo of what generative AI on a phone might look like. Now phones packing this technology are on sale, said Ziad Asghar, who leads the company's AI product roadmap. "From our perspective, we are the enablers," said Asghar. "Each and every one of our partners can choose to commercialize with unique experiences that they think are more important for their end consumer."At MWC, the company launched its AI Hub, which gives developers access to 75 plug-and-play generative AI models that they can pick and choose from to apply to their products. That number will grow, and it means any company making devices with Qualcomm chips will be able to add all sorts of AI features.The Galaxy S24 Ultra showing the new chat translation feature.As well as deciding which AI features to develop, one of the next big challenges phone-makers will have to tackle is how to get AI onto their cheaper devices. For now AI is primarily reserved for the top-end phones — the Galaxy S24s of the world — but over time this will change. There will be a trickle-down effect where this tech ends up on a wider range of a company's devices.There will naturally be a difference in quality and speed between what the most expensive and the cheapest devices can do, said Asghar, as is currently the case with a phone's camera tech.AI enhancements to our phones are all well and good, but already we're seeing artificial intelligence being used in ways that have the power to totally change how we interact with our devices — as well as potentially changing what devices we choose to own.In addition to enabling companies to bring AI to their existing device lines, Qualcomm's tech is powering concept phones like the T Phone, created by Deutsche Telekom and Brain.AI. Together, these two have tapped Qualcomm's chipset to totally reimagine your phone's interface, creating an appless experience that responds to you based on your needs and the task you're trying to accomplish and generates, on the fly, whatever you see on screen as you go.This interface was generated in real time based on a request to find flights.In the demo I saw at MWC, AI showed it has the potential to put an end to the days of constant app-swapping as you're trying to make a plan or complete a task. "It really changes the way we interface with devices and becomes a lot more natural," said Asghar.But, he said, that's only the beginning. He'd like to see the same concept applied to mixed reality glasses. He sees the big benefit of the AI in allowing new inputs through gesture, voice and vision that don't necessarily rely on us tapping on a screen. "Technology is much more interesting when it's not really in your face, but it's solving the problems for you in an almost invisible manner," he said.His words reminded me of a moment in the MWC keynote presentation when Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis asked an important question. "In five-plus years time, is the phone even really going to be the perfect form factor?" said Hassabis. "There's all sorts of amazing things to be invented."As we saw at CES with the Rabbit R1 and at MWC with the Humane AI Pin, these things are starting to become a reality. In my demo with the AI Pin — a wearable device with no screen that you interact with through voice and touch — it was clear to me that AI is creating space for experimentation. It's allowing us to ask what may succeed the phone as the dominant piece of technology in our lives.It's also opening up new possibilities for tech that's been around awhile but for whatever reason hasn't quite struck a chord with consumers and found success outside of niche use cases.Many of us have now played around with generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, and we're increasingly growing familiar with the idea of AI assistants. One company, Integrit from South Korea, brought a robot to the show that demonstrated how we may interact with these services in public settings, such as hotels or stores. Its AI and robotics platform, Stella AI, features a large, pebble-shaped display on a robotic arm that can swivel to address you directly. Where this differs from previous robots I've encountered in customer service settings, such as the iconic Pepper, is that Stella is integrated with the latest AI models, including OpenAI's GPT-4 and Meta's Llama. This means it's capable of having sophisticated conversations with people in many different languages. Rather than featuring a humanoid robot face like Pepper does, Stella uses generative AI to present a photorealistic human on its display. It's entirely possible that people will feel more comfortable interacting with a human, even one that isn't real, than a humanoid robot, but it feels very early to know this for sure.Integrit's Stella combines robotics with AI in a fresh way.What is clear is that this is just the beginning. This is the first generation of devices to really tap into the power of generative and interactive AI, and the floodgates are now well and truly open."I think we'll look back at MWC 2024 as being a foundational year for AI on connected devices," said Wood, the CCS Insight analyst. "All the pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place to enable developers to start innovating around AI to deliver new experiences which will make our interactions with smartphones and PCs more intuitive."If this is the beginning, I'm intrigued to check back a year from now to see how AI continues to change our devices. Hype aside, there's a lot already happening to be excited about.Editors' note: CNET is using an AI engine to help create some stories. For more, see this post.

On-Device AI Is a Whole New Way of Experiencing Artificial Intelligence. "All the pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place to enable developers to start innovating around AI to deliver new experiences which will make our interactions with smartphones and PCs more intuitive."If this is the beginning, I'm intrigued to check back a year from now to see how AI continues to change our devices.