Nothing CEO Carl Pei: 'Apps Are Going to Disappear' as AI Agents Take Over

Carl Pei has never been shy about making bold predictions, but his latest comments at SXSW might be his most provocative yet. The Nothing CEO declared that 'apps are going to disappear,' replaced by AI agents that handle tasks on your behalf — and he's putting his company's money where his mouth is.

The Pitch: Your Phone Becomes One App

Pei's vision is elegant in its simplicity. Instead of opening Uber, typing an address, selecting a ride type, and confirming — you just tell an AI agent you need to get somewhere. The agent handles the rest. No app interfaces, no button tapping, no context-switching between a dozen different services. Your phone becomes a single intelligent surface that understands what you want and makes it happen.

This isn't a new idea in concept — it's basically what every tech company has been promising since the original Siri demo in 2011. But Pei makes an important distinction that separates his thinking from the current crop of AI assistants: the future isn't AI agents that mimic human touch on a screen. It's AI agents that talk directly to services through APIs and protocols like MCP (Model Context Protocol).

'I've seen on smartphones that some companies are trying to mimic the human touch on smartphones,' Pei said. 'So you have an AI agent that's trying to click like Uber and enter on the keyboard the address you're going to go to. That's not the future.'

That's a not-so-subtle jab at Google's Gemini screen automation, which recently launched the ability for Gemini to take over apps like Uber on your behalf — literally tapping buttons and filling in fields like a ghost operating your phone. Pei thinks that approach is a dead end.

Build for Agents, Not Humans

The more interesting part of Pei's argument is aimed at developers. He's essentially telling app makers: your interface is going to become irrelevant. If your value proposition is trapped inside a UI that only humans can navigate, you're vulnerable. The smart move is to expose APIs and MCP endpoints so AI agents can interact with your service directly, skipping the human-designed interface entirely.

Think of it like the transition from physical retail to e-commerce. Stores that only had physical locations got disrupted. Stores that built online ordering survived. Pei is saying the next disruption is the same pattern: companies that only have human-facing apps will lose to those that also build agent-facing interfaces.

Nothing is already walking this path. The company has been building what it calls 'AI-native devices' and recently launched Essential Apps — homescreen widgets that can replace full applications for common tasks. It's an incremental step toward the app-less future Pei envisions, even if the technology isn't fully there yet.

The Timeline Question

Pei is realistic about the pace of change. He previously estimated the app-less future is 7-10 years away, acknowledging that 'people love using apps.' At SXSW, he softened that slightly, saying smartphones will still exist in five years but the operating system will 'change significantly,' with new device categories emerging alongside phones.

That's a more measured take than the headline suggests, and it's probably closer to reality. We're at the 'awkward teenager' phase of AI agents — capable enough to be exciting, unreliable enough to be frustrating. The gap between 'AI can order my Uber' and 'I trust AI to order my Uber without checking' is wider than it looks.

Key Takeaways

• Nothing CEO Carl Pei predicted at SXSW that apps will disappear, replaced by AI agents that interact with services directly through APIs and protocols like MCP
• Pei criticized the approach of AI assistants that mimic human touch on screens, calling it 'not the future' — a direct shot at Google's Gemini screen automation
• He urged developers to build agent-facing interfaces (APIs, MCP) rather than relying solely on human-facing app UIs
• Nothing is building toward this vision with AI-native devices and Essential Apps that aim to replace traditional applications
• Pei estimates the transition will take 5-10 years, with smartphones persisting but operating systems changing significantly

Our Take

Pei's prediction is directionally correct but practically premature — which, to be fair, is exactly what you want from a startup CEO. The idea that AI agents should talk to services through APIs rather than screen-scraping is absolutely right. Screen automation is a hack, not a solution. It's like using OCR to read a spreadsheet instead of just opening the file. But the 'apps will disappear' framing oversells the timeline. Apps aren't just functional — they're trust interfaces. People open their banking app not just because they need to transfer money, but because they want to see their balance, verify the transaction, and feel in control. Delegating that to an invisible agent requires a level of trust in AI that most people simply don't have yet. The real insight in Pei's comments isn't about apps dying — it's about MCP and agent-facing APIs becoming the new competitive moat. Companies that build for both humans and agents will thrive. Companies that only build pretty UIs will eventually find themselves disintermediated. Nothing's bet is that being early to this transition matters more than being right about the exact timing.