Beyond the Smartphone: Why Parents & Caregivers Should Be Paying Attention to the Race for the Next Personal Device
CAVEAT: Meta’s announcement of the Muse Charm is, in our opinion, another important signal that a broader race may now be underway among major technology companies to develop what could eventually come after, or significantly reduce our reliance on, today’s smartphone. We are not suggesting that smartphones are about to disappear, and we don’t know which, if any, of these emerging devices will ultimately succeed. Rather, we believe the direction of travel is becoming increasingly clear, something that we spoke to in a 2025 article (1). In this article, we explore why companies such as Meta, OpenAI, and others are investing in AI powered personal devices and wearables, what may be driving this emerging competition, and why we believe parents, caregivers, and educators should be paying attention to what could become the next major evolution in personal technology.
For nearly two decades, the smartphone has become the centre of our digital lives. Smartphones are where we communicate with family and friends, take photographs and videos, consume entertainment, navigate, shop, bank, play games, access social media, complete schoolwork, and increasingly interact with artificial intelligence. For parents and caregivers, the smartphone has also become the device around which much of the modern digital parenting conversation have been focused:
When should my child get their first phone?
Should it stay out of the bedroom at night?
What apps should they be allowed to download?
How much time should they spend on it?
What parental controls should we activate?
How do we protect their privacy?
These are understandable questions we hear from parents and caregivers almost every day here at the White Hatter, and for good reason. The smartphone has arguably become the most important and controversial personal technology device of the past twenty years.
We believe something significant is beginning to happen within the technology industry that we should all be paying attention to. Some of the world’s largest technology companies are now exploring what personal computing could look like if the smartphone was no longer the primary device through which we interacted with the onlife world. We are certainly not suggesting that smartphones are about to disappear, more than one billion smartphones are still expected to ship globally in 2026, and IDC estimates that the global smartphone market will be worth approximately $613 billion US this year (2). However, when an industry of that size begins attracting companies interested in developing alternative ways for people to communicate with technology, particularly through artificial intelligence, we believe it is worth paying attention to the direction things are moving rather than waiting until these technologies have already become commonplace.
The recent announcement of Meta’s Muse Charm is one example of this emerging direction. Recently, at Meta Connect 2026, Meta introduced the Muse Charm, a small pocket or keychain sized device designed specifically around the company’s Muse artificial intelligence agent. Meta describes the Charm as allowing users to communicate with Muse through a real time voice model without relying upon the traditional process of pulling out a smartphone, unlocking it, finding an app, opening that app, and then interacting through a touchscreen (3). There are still many things we do not know about the Muse Charm, including important details surrounding pricing, Canadian availability, age requirements, parental controls, privacy protections, data retention, and exactly how Meta expects people to incorporate the device into their everyday lives. For that reason, we do not view the Muse Charm itself as the most important part of this story, what really interests us far more is what this device may represent.
The Race To Build What Comes After The Smartphone
When viewed in isolation, the Muse Charm could easily be dismissed as another technology gadget or trinket entering an already crowded marketplace. However, when we step back and look at what is happening across the technology industry, a much larger picture begins to emerge. Meta is simultaneously expanding its AI glasses ecosystem and integrating Muse into those glasses, allowing artificial intelligence to potentially interact not only with the person wearing them, but also with what that person is seeing and experiencing. Meta has also announced camera free audio glasses and additional wearable devices (4). Taken together, these developments suggest that Meta is exploring a future where interacting with artificial intelligence does not necessarily require constantly looking down at a smartphone screen.
Meta is certainly not alone in this type a technology transition. OpenAI, better know as the company that owns ChatGPT, has also made a significant move into consumer hardware through its collaboration with Jony Ive, Apple’s former Chief Design Officer and one of the designers most closely associated with some of the most influential consumer technology products of the past several decades, including the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch (5). In 2025, OpenAI announced that Ive’s hardware company, io, would merge with OpenAI, while Ive and his design firm LoveFrom would assume significant design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI. At the time, OpenAI stated that the collaboration had already progressed from early ideas into tangible designs (6). Exactly what ultimately emerges from that collaboration remains uncertain, but when the multi-billion dollar company behind ChatGPT joins forces with one of the people most closely associated with designing the modern smartphone, we believe parents, educators, and those of us involved in digital literacy should pay attention.
Reuters has described this broader technology movement as a pursuit of a “post-smartphone future,” with companies including Meta, OpenAI, Samsung, and a growing number of technology startups experimenting with artificial intelligence wearables and alternative personal computing devices (7). This does not necessarily mean these companies expect the smartphone to suddenly disappear. Instead, we believe the more realistic possibility is that technology companies are competing to develop devices and artificial intelligence systems that gradually reduce how frequently we need to interact directly with a phone. Given that smartphones represent a global market worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually, even capturing a portion of the personal computing activities currently performed through smartphones represents an enormous commercial opportunity.
The Smartphone May Not Disappear, It May Simply Become Less Important
When people hear discussions about technology “replacing the smartphone,” it can create the impression that some revolutionary new device will suddenly appear and everyone will throw their phones into a drawer. Technology transitions rarely happen that way. The smartphone itself did not completely eliminate desktop computers, laptops, televisions, cameras, GPS navigation systems, watches, gaming consoles, or music players. Instead, it absorbed many of their functions and changed how frequently and why we used those other devices. A similar transition could now begin happening around the smartphone itself, particularly as artificial intelligence becomes more capable of understanding natural language, interpreting our surroundings, remembering previous interactions, and completing tasks on our behalf.
In the near future, the smartphone may still remain in our pocket, backpack, or purse, providing connectivity, processing power, and access to cellular networks, while much of our everyday interaction with technology takes place somewhere else. Rather than a phone, maybe all that will be needed is a cellular hub that can act as an interface between the user and the internet. That interface could become a pair of glasses, earbuds, a watch, a pendant, a charm, clothing, or some entirely new category of device that has not yet entered the mainstream. Instead of pulling out a phone and typing a search query, we may simply ask a question aloud. Instead of opening a navigation app, we may ask our glasses where to turn. Instead of photographing an object and uploading the image to an AI system, a wearable device may already be capable of seeing what we are looking at. Instead of opening several different apps to book a restaurant, purchase something, send an email, or organize our schedule, we may increasingly ask a personal AI agent to complete those tasks for us. Many of these capabilities are no longer theoretical or something off in the distant future, they are already being developed, deployed, and used in the here and now.
This represents something more significant than simply shrinking the smartphone into another form factor. The smartphone still generally requires us to initiate the interaction, we reach for it, unlock it, open something, type, swipe, tap, or scroll. AI powered wearables have the potential to make computing much more ambient, meaning that technology becomes increasingly integrated into our surroundings and everyday activities rather than existing primarily behind a screen. For adults, this could be extraordinarily useful, however, for children and teens whose cognitive, emotional, social, and decision making skills are still developing, we believe this shift deserves a much deeper conversation.
From “Screen Time” To “AI Presence”
For years, one of the dominant ways we have measured a youth or teen’s relationships with technology has been through the concept of “screen time.” We have repeatedly argued that screen time by itself is an overly simplistic measurement because sixty minutes spent video chatting with a grandparent, creating digital art, researching a school project, scrolling social media, and playing an online game are very different experiences. Context, content, developmental readiness, displacement, and what a youth or teen is actually doing with technology matter far more than simply counting minutes. However, even with all of its limitations, screen time has provided parents and caregivers with something relatively easy to see. When a youth or teen is sitting on the couch looking at a smartphone or tablet, we know that they are interacting with technology.
AI wearables could make that distinction much less obvious. Imagine a teenager wearing AI enabled glasses while walking to school. Their artificial intelligence assistant could potentially answer questions, translate languages, identify objects, provide directions, summarize information, communicate with services, make recommendations, record information, and perhaps eventually interact with other AI agents. The teenager may hardly look at a traditional screen during that entire period, yet artificial intelligence could be accompanying and influencing them throughout much of their day. Measuring that experience purely through “screen time” would tell us almost nothing meaningful about their relationship with technology.
This is why we believe parents and caregivers may increasingly need to think about something we would describe as AI presence rather than simply screen time.
How frequently is artificial intelligence present in a child’s day?
What role is it playing?
What information is the child sharing with it?
What information is it collecting about the child and the people around them?
What decisions is it influencing?
What tasks is the child delegating to it?
Is the AI helping the child develop their abilities, or is it gradually replacing opportunities for the child to think, struggle, problem-solve, remember, navigate, communicate, create, and make decisions independently?
These questions will become increasingly important as AI moves away from being something youth and teens deliberately open on a computer, and toward something that may simply accompany them throughout their day.
When The Camera And Microphone Become Almost Invisible
Another important difference between traditional smartphones and emerging AI wearables involves privacy and social awareness. When someone uses a smartphone to record a photograph or video, the behaviour is generally visible. They usually have to remove the device from their pocket, hold it in a particular direction, and activate the camera. Those physical actions provide people nearby with at least some indication that a recording may be taking place. Wearable technology can fundamentally change those social signals because cameras, microphones, and sensors can be incorporated into devices that look like ordinary glasses, jewellery, earbuds, watches, or clothing.
This creates privacy questions not only for the person wearing the device, but also for everyone around them. A person standing beside someone wearing AI enabled glasses may never have agreed to interact with artificial intelligence, yet their face, voice, behaviour, location, or conversation could potentially become part of what the device processes. Depending on how a particular product is designed, some information may be analyzed locally on the device while other information may be transmitted elsewhere for processing. These distinctions matter, particularly when children and schools are involved. Reuters has reported growing international concern surrounding AI wearables and smart glasses, including questions involving recording, consent, data processing, and the collection of information about people who never chose to use the technology themselves (8).
Schools may be among the first institutions forced to deal with this transition in a significant way. Many schools are currently debating or implementing policies governing smartphones in classrooms (9). However, a policy written specifically around “phones” may quickly become outdated if the same or even greater capabilities migrate into glasses, watches, earbuds, jewellery, or other wearable devices. A student may technically comply with a rule requiring their smartphone to remain in their locker while still wearing technology capable of recording audio, accessing artificial intelligence, searching for information, translating text, communicating with others, or assisting with schoolwork. This is why we believe school technology policies increasingly need to focus on capabilities and behaviours, rather than simply naming individual devices.
When Artificial Intelligence Becomes A Companion
There is another dimension to this transition that we believe deserves particular attention from parents and caregivers. Smartphones have traditionally been tools that youth and teens use. Generative artificial intelligence introduces something fundamentally different because the technology can communicate back in ways that increasingly resemble human conversation. An AI agent can potentially remember previous interactions, adapt its responses, learn a person’s preferences, recognize patterns in their behaviour, and become increasingly familiar with their interests, routines, relationships, and personal concerns.
Meta states that Muse can remember information that matters to the user so that it can provide increasingly personalized suggestions and take actions based upon information previously shared. The company has also described Muse as being able to connect with other services and perform tasks on behalf of the user. For an adult, capabilities such as these could become extremely useful. An AI agent that understands your calendar, travel plans, preferences, work responsibilities, shopping habits, and communication style could save considerable time and reduce friction throughout the day. However, when the user is a developing youth or teenager, we believe these same capabilities deserve additional scrutiny.
At what age or developmental stage should a youth or teen have access to a persistent personal AI agent?
Should an AI system interact differently with a 12 year old than with a 35 year old?
How much should it be permitted to remember about a youth or teen?
How long should those memories be retained?
Should an artificial intelligence system attempt to develop emotional rapport with a youth or teen?
What happens when a youth or ten begins turning to their AI agent before turning to a parent, caregiver, teacher, coach, counsellor, sibling, or friend?
What safeguards should exist when the youth or teen shares information suggesting they are frightened, being bullied, experiencing abuse, or considering harming themselves or somebody else?
These are not arguments against artificial intelligence, they are legitimate developmental, privacy, and safety questions that we believe should be answered before persistent AI companions become normalized within childhood.
Parental Controls Will Need To Evolve
Most parental controls currently available to families were designed around the architecture of smartphones, tablets, computers, and applications. Parents and caregivers can restrict particular apps, filter websites, establish downtime, limit purchases, control communication, restrict certain categories of content, and manage privacy settings. These tools are far from perfect, but they are based upon a relatively understandable model, that being the youth or teen has a device, the device contains applications, and parents or caregivers can place boundaries around how those applications and the device itself are used.
Personal AI agents could disrupt that model because the AI may eventually operate across multiple services simultaneously. Rather than a youth or teen opening a shopping app, messaging app, web browser, map, calendar, and social media platform individually, an AI agent could potentially interact with all of them on the youth or teen’s behalf. If that becomes the dominant model, simply blocking individual applications may become much less meaningful. The parental controls of the future may therefore need to focus less on individual apps and more on the permissions, capabilities, memory, autonomy, and agency of the artificial intelligence itself.
Parents and caregivers may eventually need controls that answer questions we rarely had to consider during the early smartphone era. Can the AI:
Make purchases?
Communicate with strangers?
Access precise location?
Remember private conversations?
Identify people through facial recognition?
Continuously listen for commands?
Record audio or video?
Analyze the people standing nearby?
Access health information?
Connect with social media accounts?
Create and distribute images or videos?
Independently contact another person or AI agent?
Take actions when the youth or teen is not actively interacting with it?
These are very different questions from deciding whether a youth or teen should be allowed to download TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, or a particular game.
We Should Learn From The Smartphone And The Legacy Social Media Era
One of the most important lessons we believe parents, caregivers, and educators should take from the smartphone and social media era is that we should not wait until a technology is deeply embedded within childhood before asking meaningful questions about developmental readiness, privacy, persuasive design, safety, and healthy use. Too often, the pattern has worked in the opposite direction, a technology becomes popular, millions of youth and teens begin using it, parents and schools attempt to understand it, researchers begin studying its effects, governments begin considering regulation, and technology companies introduce additional safeguards. By the time many of these conversations take place, the technology may already be deeply woven into the social lives of youth and teens. AI wearables and personal AI agents provide us with an opportunity to ask some of these questions earlier.
What does healthy use look like?
At what developmental stages are particular AI capabilities appropriate?
What information should these systems be permitted to collect from youth and teen’s?
What should companies be prohibited from doing with that information?
Should youth and teen’s interactions be used to train AI models?
How should AI companions interact with minors?
What should happen when these devices enter classrooms?
How should recording and consent work when cameras and microphones are worn rather than held?
What information should parents be able to access,
What reasonable privacy should an older teenager retain?
These are conversations that parents, caregivers, educators, child development experts, privacy commissioners, policymakers, and technology companies should be having now rather than several years from now.
Perhaps the most important question has less to do with technology, and more to do with childhood itself. As artificial intelligence becomes capable of doing more for our children, we need to decide what we still want our children to learn to do for themselves. There is developmental value in getting lost and learning how to navigate, forgetting something and learning how to remember it next time, struggling with a difficult assignment, resolving a disagreement with a friend, learning how to research a question, developing an argument, making a mistake, experiencing frustration, and eventually figuring something out. Artificial intelligence can potentially reduce many of these points of friction, but sometimes friction is precisely where learning, resilience, confidence, and independence develop. The goal should therefore not simply be to ask what AI can do for our children, but what it should do for them at different stages of their development.
None of this means parents and caregivers should fear the Muse Charm, Meta’s smart glasses, OpenAI and Jony Ive’s future hardware, or whatever new devices eventually emerge. We also do not know which of these products will succeed, the history of consumer technology is filled with products that were promoted as revolutionary but ultimately disappeared because consumers found them expensive, inconvenient, unnecessary, socially awkward, or simply inferior to the technology they were supposed to replace. Smartphones remain extraordinarily capable devices, and there is currently no reason to believe families are about to abandon them.
However, focusing exclusively on whether one particular product succeeds risks missing the much larger technological shift taking place around us. Artificial intelligence is gradually moving beyond the traditional computer screen, it’s becoming conversational, personalized, persistent, wearable, increasingly capable of understanding the physical environment around us, and increasingly capable of taking actions on our behalf. The Muse Charm is one example of that direction, Meta’s AI glasses are another, and OpenAI and Jony Ive’s hardware work represents another. Other companies will undoubtedly experiment with their own approaches, and many of those products will fail. It may ultimately be the underlying idea, rather than any one particular device, that changes how we interact with technology.
For parents and caregivers, this means our digital parenting conversations will also need to evolve. For much of the past decade, we have focused on managing the device in our child’s hand, when they receive it, where they use it, what applications they install, how long they spend looking at it, and what they do while they are online. The next stage of digital parenting may increasingly involve helping youth and teens understand artificial intelligence that is not simply something they access, but something that may accompany them throughout their day, learn about them over time, observe parts of their environment, make recommendations, influence decisions, and eventually take actions on their behalf.
At The White Hatter, we have long advocated a “Know Tech, Not No Tech” approach to digital parenting, we believe the same principle applies to AI. Parents and caregivers do not need to become artificial intelligence engineers, nor do they need to reject every new AI device that enters the marketplace. However, we do believe parents and caregivers should understand the direction this technology is moving so that they can make informed, developmentally appropriate decisions for their own families. Technology will continue to change, devices will continue to evolve, and artificial intelligence will become increasingly integrated into everyday life. Our responsibility as parents and caregivers is not to predict every device that comes next, but to make sure the human element remains at the centre of how our children learn to use them (10).
For years, one of the biggest technology questions facing parents and caregivers has been, “When should my child get their first smartphone?” We believe another question is quickly moving alongside it, “When should my child have their own personal AI?” That may ultimately prove to be one of the most important digital parenting questions of the next decade that need to be asked NOW!
Digital Food For Thought
The White Hatter
Facts Not Fear, Facts Not Emotions, Enlighten Not Frighten, Know Tech Not No Tech
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