The Third Device Pipedream: Why Companion AI Gadgets Are Doomed

Creatix / August 17, 2025

The Third Device Pipedream: Why Companion AI Gadgets Are Doomed

"I want a third device" said no one. Tech history repeats itself. Every few years, tech entrepreneurs dream of inventing a new category of device that will “revolutionize” our lives. The fad quietly fades away when consumers realize they don’t want to juggle yet another gadget. The latest hype? Standalone “companion” AI devices. The reality? They’ll go the way of the Garmin GPS, the once-trendy iPad, Facebook's meta flop called Portal, Apple Vision Pro, and so many others failed attempts at increasing indispensable gadget and "companions". Make no mistake, AI "companions" are coming and will be a huge success. However, they will be integrated with smartphone. The "phone" (handheld mobile computer that makes calls and much more) will be the AI companion.  

The Lesson of GPS Devices and Digital Cameras

If you’re old enough, you might remember the glory days of TomTom and Garmin GPS units suction-cupped to car windshields. They were fantastic at the time. The technology was unbelievable and our parents couldn't believe not needing a map to get from point A to point B. Satellites were incredible and a great hint into the future of the global economy. In any event, standalone GPS units disappeared from the face of the Earth. The GPS technology was integrated into the smartphone device with navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze. Now, they’re extinct, fossils of a short-lived tech era, and many of you don't even know what we are talking about.

The same fate befell digital cameras. In the 2000s, our parents were crazy happy with the incredible digital cameras made by Japanese techno powerhouses of the past like Sony, Canon, and Nikon. Everyone carried a Canon PowerShot or Nikon Coolpix to capture vacations, nights out, and family moments. Remember camcorders? Those were omnipresent in vacations and family events. But as phone cameras improved, people ditched the extra gadgets. Why carry separate digital camera and a camcorders when the phone takes better photos and videos that can be shared instantly? Outside a limited segment of professionals and enthusiasts, the standalone camera was swallowed whole by the smartphone.

GPS and digital cameras didn’t disappear because they were useless. They disappeared because they were too useful not to be integrated into the one device everyone already carried: the phone. AI “companions” are headed for the same absorption. Mark this prediction to hold us accountable. 

The iPad’s Decline

The iPad is yet another example about the impossibility of a third device. The iPad was once positioned as the must-have “third device”—not a phone, not a laptop, but a magical in-between. At first, it worked. Millions sold. But today, the iPad’s relevance has withered. Most people don’t want a phone, a laptop, and a tablet. Two is enough. Tablets survive in niches (kids’ entertainment, creative studios, points of sale), but the mass market has largely moved on.

Enter the AI “Companion” Devices

Everyone and their brother in tech is now talking about the upcoming "third device" in the form of an AI companion gadget. They're talking about a new standalone category: desk-friendly “companions” that chat with us, summarize, brainstorm, and remind. The problem? No one will want to carry, charge, maintain, upgrade, etc, a third device where the AI companionship can (and will) be integrated into the phone. Smartphones are already a prosthetic extension of consumers' hands. Consumers basically already live on their phones. That’s where their apps, contacts, and daily life live. Why would they step outside that ecosystem for an AI tool that can—and inevitably will—be built into the phone?

Smartphones: The AI Integration Point

Smartphones aren’t going anywhere. They’re the central hub of modern life: wallet, keys, camera, communication, entertainment. AI is integrating in phones already. There's no need for a third device. Integrating companionship AI into the phone is more convenient. In the human economy, convenience always prevails. Apple and Google know this, which is why they’re already embedding AI deeply into iOS and Android. In a few years, the upcoming “AI gadgets” will look as quaint as a dashboard Garmin GPS or a pocket digital camera.

Forecast: The Companion Device Bubble

Companion AI devices may sell in the short term to early adopters and novelty seekers. But mass adoption? Unlikely. They’re stopgaps—beta experiments that prove demand for AI features, not demand for new hardware. Just as GPS units, digital cameras, and tablets were ultimately cannibalized by the phone, standalone AI gadgets will follow the same path: popular for a season, irrelevant once integration is complete.

Conclusion

Consumers don’t want more devices. We can't handle a third device. We only have two hands and one is already taken by the phone. If at all, we want fewer devices, but chances are that a laptop and a phone will remain as the indispensable duo guiding us in the Information Era. 

The smartphone is the universal platform, and it has already devoured entire product categories—maps, cameras, tablets, and much more if we think about it. AI companion gadgets will be no different. They will be integrated into the phones and laptop computers. They will not be the "third device" promised by tech industry storytellers. 

Now you know it. 

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