How important AI has become has been revealed from a recent report. According to the latest CMR Smartphone AI Pulse 2026 study by CyberMedia Research (CMR), Artificial Intelligence is becoming a big factor in smartphone purchasing decisions in India. On the other hand, there are some people for whom trust and privacy are of utmost importance. In this study, this survey was conducted with more than 2000 smartphone users aged 18 to 35 years in 8 Indian cities and it was found that 82 percent people believe that trust is most important. For this, transparent data practice is also necessary to build trust in AI experience. Additionally, 61 percent said that on-device AI processing improves both privacy and responsiveness.
CMR results show that AI It has gone beyond just being a value-added feature and is now a must-have feature when choosing a smartphone. 78 percent of people cited overall performance as the most important buying factor, 70 percent cited camera quality along with AI enhancements, while 59 percent said that strong AI capabilities influence their purchasing decisions.
The study also found that 68 percent of consumers consider the chipset to be the main factor for AI performance, which includes gaming, photography, responsiveness and battery optimization. This awareness is especially high among Gen Z users, in which 83 percent people believe in the role of chipset in providing AI experience.
For 15 percent people, this is not AI, this is the priority.
The use of AI has also increased a lot among smartphone users. About 77 percent of people say that they actively use AI powered photography features, which include low-light enhancement, portrait optimization and scene detection. At the same time, 71 percent people use generative AI features several times a week for tasks like search, help in writing, summarization, translation and conversation.
The survey has also thrown light on the changing preferences of customers. When shown similarly priced smartphones, 60 percent liked the balance between AI capabilities and strong hardware, while 25 percent described themselves as AI-first buyers. Only 15 percent people said that they would give priority to hardware rather than AI features.
Read this also- Laying off 3300 employees, now HCLTech will invest Rs 3500 crore in AI
Leave a Reply