Every new phone I have set up this year has tried to sell me the same thing before it would let me use it. Somewhere in the wizard, after the Wi-Fi and before the fingerprint, a screen asks me to switch on the AI assistant, and the button to skip is the small gray one at the bottom. I tap the small gray one every time. It turns out I have company.
In a January report called The Evolving Ecosystem, the market research firm Circana found that 86 percent of American adults now know their phones and gadgets ship with AI features. Of that aware group, about a third, 35 percent, said they are simply not interested. The other 65 percent do want AI on at least one kind of device, so this is not a revolt. It is something quieter and more useful to know about: a settled minority who have heard the pitch and passed.
What that minority says about why is the part worth reading. The top reason was not fear. Nearly two-thirds of the uninterested told Circana their devices already do the things they need. The most common objection to AI is not that it is frightening, but that it is unnecessary. After that comes privacy, cited by 59 percent of the holdouts, and money: 43 percent said they do not want to pay more for AI features. Only 15 percent found it too complicated. These are the answers of people who considered the offer, not people who were confused by it.
The timing is pointed. Samsung unveiled its third generation of Galaxy AI phones in February, built around agentic features meant to act on your behalf. Apple is reported to be readying an iPhone 18 Pro for September with a Gemini-powered Siri overhaul and expanded Visual Intelligence. Every autumn phone arrives with more AI bolted on than the last, at the exact moment a third of the aware group is telling researchers they did not ask for it.
This is where the 43 percent of the uninterested who will not pay more deserve backup. A lot of the marquee features route through a subscription. Google's AI Pro plan, the one bundled free for six months with recent Galaxy flagships, is $19.99 a month once the free window closes, and Samsung has never promised its own Galaxy AI stays free forever. Run what I call the two-year question on that: a feature you were nudged into during setup can quietly become $240 a year by year two. The privacy math is simpler. Anything that leaves your phone for a server is something that can be breached, subpoenaed, or repurposed, which is exactly why the on-device processing these companies now advertise is a genuine improvement and not just a slogan.
So here is the plain version. If the AI helps you, use it. 82 percent of the youngest aware adults, those aged 18 to 24, want it, and they are not wrong to. But you are allowed to be in the third who does not, and you are not a luddite for it. Circana's own analyst, Sara Rosenman, called AI on devices "more of a nice-to-have feature, as opposed to a core decision driver," which is a research firm's careful way of saying buy the phone for the camera and the battery, not the chatbot. The AI will sit there in the setup wizard either way, waiting for you to tap the small gray button. And when the free trial ends, so will the part where it was free.
