Nearly 50% of smartphones to have AI-powered assistant in 2018: Report

In 2017, Google Assistant rose to be the top AI assistant with a 46.7% market share, followed by Apple's Siri with 40.1%

About half of smartphones sold globally this year will have an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered assistant, a report by an industry consulting firm showed Sunday.

According to Strategy Analytics (SA) Inc., 47.7 per cent of smartphones sold on the global market will be equipped with some kind of on-device AI assistant, up from 36.6 per cent last year, Yonhap news agency reported.

On-device AI is growing fast among smartphone vendors and by 2023, around 90 per cent of smartphones will have a built-in AI assistant, according to the Strategy Analytics report.

In 2017, Google Assistant rose to be the top AI assistant with a 46.7 per cent market share, followed by Apple's Siri with 40.1 per cent, it said.

The report said the market share of Google's AI assistant is expected to climb to 51.3 per cent this year and 60.6 per cent by 2023.