โYou could almost argue that the smartphone is becoming a little bit closer to a washing machine than the cutting-edge, rapidly changing device category that it used to be,โ says Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, a technology research firm. Samsung Electronics and Alphabet Google, which have spent years partnering on mobile phonesโand the Android software that powers themโsee a silver bullet in the form of artificial intelligence. โThis new era of AI is a profound opportunity to make smartphones truly smart,โ Sameer Samat, Googleโs vice president of product management for Android, said during the Google I/O developers conference on Tuesday.