Lenny RachitskyHost of Lenny's Podcast | Author of Lenny's Newsletter

Predicting the next big consumer device

10 Jun 2026 · 2 min

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1:30

In this monologue, Lenny Rachitsky argues that the next major shift in consumer devices will be a move to a voice‑first interface, flipping the current hierarchy of input methods. He traces the evolution of device interaction layers—from tapping and swiping on the iPhone, to keyboards, and finally to voice—suggesting that voice should become the primary feature, with displays remaining only as a secondary, transitional element. Rachitsky emphasizes the need to build trust in voice systems, noting that voice was historically an after‑thought in phones and cars but can become central once accuracy improves. He also raises concerns about the economic sustainability of current AI subscription pricing (e.g., $20–$200 per month for services like ChatGPT), arguing that mass‑market consumers will not bear such costs unless the value is extraordinary. The talk concludes that while displays will persist until more advanced interfaces (e.g., brain‑computer interfaces) emerge, the long‑term trajectory points toward voice‑centric devices.

Chapters

If you look at how a device is layered today, an iPhone started this, which was tapping and swiping. Then after that was keyboard. And then after that, the tertiary thing was a voice input. We need to flip it. I want to remove displays and we need to have voice as the number one primary feature. And you build around voice. Most of us don't go around talking to our phones and everything. And we saw this also happen with cars because voice was always added at the end because it was always like, well, it's sort sort of works, and it's, it's a gizmo. But when we actually have really good voice input, we can start to use that much more specifically and then deprecate those other things. That's the long-term thing. In the middle now, it's going to look much, much like the smartphone is. We're still going to need a display because, sorry people, unless we're plugging it into our brain like a BCI brain computer, or there's some laser thing going into our retina, we're going to need a display. But it's gonna be much more voice primary. We are literally turning over a lot to this trusted thing because tapping and swiping, we know what that is for the most part. This other thing we don't know. And so it's gonna take a lot of time for us to be able to get en masse to trust it. And we're already seeing this with coding agents and everything else. And it's cheap enough so it doesn't cost 'em a lot. Today people are like, yeah, I'm gonna try ChatGPT or whatever it is, $20 a month or $200 a month. That is unsustainable if you think consumers are gonna pay that. There's just no way, unless it's incredible.