The last two years of major phone launches may have been dominated by AI hype, but these features are only a minor consideration when Australians are actually buying a new handset. New research from OPPO Australia shows that just 4% of Aussies consider AI features important when choosing what phone to buy.
The research comes from a sample of 1,000 Australians, where participants were asked to name up to three factors important to them when choosing a phone. Battery life was the number one factor, with 44% of respondents considering it important. This was followed by value for money with 34%, and camera quality and the device being "high quality" in equal third with 27%.
Only a small number of options ranked below AI features, including NFC (3%), sustainable practices (3%), dust resistance (2%), and a free gift with purchase (2%).
OPPO Australia Managing Director Michael Tran told WhistleOut that while various forms of artificial intelligence help with features like photography and battery optimisation, he isn't actively going on to his phone to use AI.
"When I think about me personally, what I use [my phone] for, I use it for streaming content, I'm on social media, taking photos," said Tran.
OPPO's research was conducted ahead of the launch of its Find X9 and Find X9 Pro handsets, where the brand is highlighting hardware like 7,000mAh plus batteries and a 200MP zoom lens on the Pro model rather than AI features.
"For consumers, it still goes back to what are their pain points," said Tran. "You go out for the night, and all of a sudden, you don't have enough battery. We're addressing that."
"Consumers are saturated with so much AI stuff, and we have AI capabilities, but we're focusing on what we do best. We've always been known for battery, and we've really worked on the camera."
The Find X9 series does still come with new AI features, like "Mind Space". Mind Space is effectively a digital scrapbook where users can save various bits and bobs, such as web pages they're looking at, photos, or screenshots. These are then automatically organised, with related items grouped together. Gemini can also be used to take actions based on a user's content with the Mind Space app.
Looking more broadly, OPPO's research is at odds with how major brands have positioned their flagship phones over the last two years. Galaxy AI was the headline feature for both Samsung's S24 and S25 families, Google has been all-in on AI with the Pixel 9 and Pixel 10, and there were Apple Intelligence billboards in the streets to promote iPhone 16 well ahead of the features actually shipping. Conversely, AI was barely mentioned in Apple's iPhone 17 family launch event.
Despite the ubiquity of AI features, there isn't much difference in core functionality. Every phone with generative AI has the same toolkit: there's a "magic eraser" in the photos app, summarisation, translation, "writing tools" that can rephrase your messages or emails, and transcription. Much like NFC, this feature set now exists across every flagship phone.
As commoditised as phones have become, there's still variance when it comes to hardware features. The iPhone 17 Pro Max has a better battery than any other 2025 iPhone, for example. OPPO's new devices have some of the largest capacity batteries in a phone to date. If battery is important to a customer, unlike AI, they can't just find that anywhere.
Alex Choros
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