Our phone is a cognitive dumpster. How intent-centric architectures will replace app-based clutter.
Our phones have become cognitive dumpsters. 127 icons, each a gateway to a separate universe with its own rules, logins, loyalty cards, and push notifications. We’ve reached peak absurdity: our pockets hold supercomputers, while our brains perform the chores of digital handymen — searching, comparing, downloading, logging in, paying.
Today’s tech giant presentations, with Apple as the prime example, increasingly resemble Nokia in its decline: endless iterations of cases, slightly brighter screens, marginally faster chips. This is an evolutionary dead end masking a crisis of ideas. Innovation has been reduced to swapping aluminum for titanium and adding another sensor. The specs race has exhausted itself because it no longer transforms how we interact with the world. Platforms have matured, hardened, and stagnated. It seems the next revolution won’t come from Silicon Valley, but from those daring to offer not a new product, but a new logic of interaction.
From interface to intent: a paradigm shift
Imagine a platform where the central element isn’t your home screen, but your goal. You don’t open a taxi app. You say: “To the airport by 5 PM.” Your agent — your digital self — consults an open registry, finds everyone who can solve this task, chooses the best based on your criteria, and directly, via API, books the ride. No downloading. No logins. No pizza discount notifications.
We’re accustomed to voice assistants promising such scenarios, but their fundamental limitation is that they’re merely add-ons to an outdated architecture dominated by monolithic apps and walled gardens. They can only work with what the platform explicitly allows them. The main question isn’t what we want to achieve, but what architecture our devices must have to make it truly possible?
The answer lies not in updating software, but in rethinking the very core of digital interaction. We must elevate the agent from a beggar knocking on closed app doors to a full-fledged orchestrator with direct access to an open market of machine-readable services. This requires a new operating environment where the central process isn’t a window manager, but a task scheduler working with a global skill registry. Where security is ensured not by app store reviews, but by execution isolation and cryptographic trust protocols. Where the device isn’t a program repository, but an intelligent gateway to the world of services.
This isn’t an improved voice assistant. It’s a paradigm shift in control. I call it the i*ntent-centric operating environment (ICOE).* Its core isn’t an operating system, but your personal proactive intelligent agent (PIA) — a digital extension of your will.
Three principles of the new architecture
1. The agent as your digital self
Your agent is your cognitive immune system. It must be proactive, run locally, and be your only interface. It operates exclusively on your device. Its task is to understand your request’s essence, not to sell you a partner’s service. Its loyalty is solely to you. The interface ceases to be an icon forest — your main interlocutor becomes an intelligent agent.
2. The world as a service menu
An open global skill registry — a decentralized catalog where any company can publish machine-readable descriptions of its services. No need to download apps — services become virtual and available to your agent. Operators can earn money not from selling apps or in-app advertising, but by providing specific functions and API calls — via micropayments, subscriptions, or pay-per-result models. This creates competition at the API quality level, not the app level.
3. Security through transparency and isolation
Tasks are executed in isolated containers. The agent orchestrates micro-services from the registry to achieve your goal, not the goal of an advertising algorithm.
How it works in practice
- Not an “App Store,” but an “Operator Registry.” A decentralized catalog where companies register services not as .apk files, but as sets of machine-readable intents and API endpoints.
- The user’s AI Agent is the only client. When you say “Order a taxi to work,” your AI agent:
- Comprehends the request
- Searches the registry for providers capable of fulfilling this intent
- Selects the best one (based on your preferences: price, speed, subscription)
- Directly accesses the chosen provider’s API using a standard protocol to execute the action
- The Developer is a Service Operator, Not an Interface Creator. Their task isn’t to design screen buttons, but to:
- Provide a stable, secure, and standardized API
- Describe their service’s capabilities in a machine-readable format for the registry
- Compete on API quality, not icon brightness in a store
- Earn money by providing specific functions and API calls
The intent-centric operating environment (ICOE) concept
This might seem like a bold idea, but all the necessary technologies have matured for its implementation. Modern AI systems can run on-device, understanding context and request semantics. Decentralized registry technologies have been proven for creating trusted systems and secure data storage. Microservice architecture has become the standard for modern IT infrastructures, ensuring flexibility and scalability. All these components exist and are ready for integration into a new paradigm of digital interaction. A new intention-based OS might not arrive tomorrow, but within a 10–15 year horizon, such a transition is inevitable.
For me, this is deeper than just architecture or technology. It’s a matter of digital sovereignty and cognitive ecology. We spend energy managing interfaces instead of spending it on creativity, communication, and decision-making. We will stop thinking about “apps.” We will simply live in a digital world that understands our intentions and responds with quiet, effective action.
Conclusion: what’s next?
The presented concept of an intent-centric operating environment (ICOE) describes a paradigm shift from managing applications to declaring target states. The system’s key elements are an AI agent (PIA) for semantic analysis and planning, a decentralized machine-readable operator registry, and an isolated execution environment.
In the context of current developments, partial analogs should be noted. For example, the Rabbit R1 project uses a Large Action Model to simulate human actions in existing interfaces, representing a workaround that doesn’t require service cooperation. Humane AI Pin focuses on alternative I/O interfaces. Voice assistants (Siri, Alexa) and automation platforms (IFTTT) work as add-ons over traditional OSs, maintaining dependence on GUI apps and manual configuration. In any case, these are all layers on top of a monolithic OS, attempting to reconcile the old world of apps with the world of automation.
ICOE’s fundamental difference lies in proposing a fundamentally new architecture based on a machine-readable skill registry and decentralized service orchestration. Instead of simulating human actions in outdated interfaces or creating another abstraction layer, the system presupposes providers transitioning to a new interaction standard. This ensures semantic compatibility, security, and scalability absent in existing solutions.
Beyond the App Store and Google Play lies a world without apps. A future where our digital experience is defined not by downloaded programs, but by our own intentions.
But for this world to become reality, key challenges must be solved: who will architect the universal language of digital intentions, and who will create the trusted environment for their execution? This isn’t a theoretical question — it’s the space for the next revolution.
The question is whether one of the current corporate digital giants will do this, or a new promising startup, free from the burden of outdated paradigms. The answer will determine who builds the next big AI platform — replacing obsolete app stores.
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