Cellular World Congress (MWC) 2025 is only a few brief weeks from now, and firms have already begun to tease what’s in retailer for the massive annual present. Honor simply launched a pair of recent telephones so it appears to be like like the corporate might be specializing in the software program entrance for MWC this 12 months, pushing ahead with a brand new AI-focused idea it calls the Honor Alpha Plan.
Final 12 months’s launch of the Honor Magic 6 Professional got here with a full dedication to main with AI-forward options, significantly the place the telephone’s digicam was involved. On the time, the idea was nonetheless pretty new amongst telephones, as Samsung had simply introduced Galaxy AI and most different AI-powered options baked into Android used AI earlier than the time period was in vogue.
The largest situation with Honor’s AI launch final 12 months was compatibility with non-Honor units and companies. The rollout of Magic OS 9 alongside the Honor Magic 7 Professional helped push that ahead, with options like Magic Portal receiving assist for lots of of apps and a cool knuckle gesture that works so much like Circle to look. This builds on Google’s operate by making it simple to share stuff you circle, not simply seek for them.
At MWC, we count on large issues from the brand-new CEO of Honor, Jian Li, who simply changed earlier CEO George Zhao in mid-January. Little question, Li is trying to make his mark on the corporate as he units the tone for the remainder of the 12 months, and the Honor Alpha Plan sounds precisely like what we’d count on.
As you may think from the title, the phrase “Alpha” is the start of the Greek alphabet and certain a brand new path ahead for the corporate’s AI pursuits. Firms are spending extra on AI in 2025 than ever, and the crown for the very best AI within the land appears to alter each week. It is unlikely that Honor goes to leap into the fray with the likes of Open AI, Grok, Gemini, and Deepseek, nevertheless it definitely would make sense for the corporate to start out launching extra AI-forward units sooner or later.
The query is whether or not which means including extra AI-enhanced options to its telephones — just like the brand-new AI telephoto function on the Magic 7 Professional — or if it means devoted AI units. One pioneer on this sector, the Humane AI Pin, simply referred to as it quits. Whereas the idea of a screenless system powered by an AI assistant is extraordinarily futuristic, Humane’s implementation of the idea left so much to be desired.
However I may simply see an organization like Honor shifting in to benefit from the curiosity on this market through the use of its experience on AI and system ecosystems. Honor already produces laptops, smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and extra that each one hyperlink collectively in impressively cohesive methods.
I exploit an Honor MagicBook Artwork 14 Snapdragon Version as my important laptop computer, and it pairs completely (and seamlessly) with the Honor Magic 7 RSR and two Honor tablets that I’ve. Utilizing a pill as a second laptop computer display is as simple as hitting the “join” button that pops up when the pill is unlocked, and the identical goes for greater display foldable telephones just like the Honor Magic V3.
A lot of the firm’s enchancment occurred all through 2024, and 2025 appears to be like to be the very best 12 months but. Android Central Telephones editor Harish Jonnalagadda wrote about Honor’s spectacular upward trajectory, and I’ve little doubt the brand new CEO is aiming even larger with the Honor Alpha Plan when it is unveiled at MWC.
Jian Li comes from a Huawei background, at a time when the corporate led smartphone digicam innovation earlier than U.S. commerce sanctions stymied the enterprise for a couple of years. Now, Li has moved on to the helm of Honor and is clearly able to take the corporate to the subsequent stage internationally.
Whereas I may hope for a correct U.S. launch of the corporate’s merchandise, I dare not maintain my breath within the present political local weather. As a substitute, I feel the corporate will focus much more on distinctive AI options which might be being copied by rivals and devoted AI-forward units that may work nicely with all kinds of units, not simply Honor’s.
In spite of everything, the Alpha Plan’s at present laid-out imaginative and prescient states that Honor “is dedicated to fostering an open and collaborative setting the place innovation thrives via partnership.” On condition that the most recent Honor units work higher than ever with Google’s personal Gemini companies, it is smart to me that Honor would push itself to be the main worldwide Android model, particularly since Samsung has been so stagnant up to now few years.
