Nothing Is Reorganising Itself Around AI, And Its Phones Might No Longer Be The Main Event

I have watched Nothing spend four years persuading people that a phone with a see-through back and blinking lights deserved their money. If a new Smartprix exclusive is accurate, that phone is about to lose its place at the head of the table.

The report attributes its information to an industry source with a track record it describes as credible, and says Nothing has started rebuilding itself around artificial intelligence rather than handsets. This is not a one-day announcement. The changeover is being staged in phases, and the first of those is expected to get moving in September, fronted by audio gear and wearables instead of a phone.

AI Now Sits Above Phones Internally

Money and manpower inside the company are said to be moving towards AI hardware, with the reasoning being that selling phones has become a harder way to make a profit as competition grows and margins thin out. Carl Pei is described as firmly behind the plan and views AI devices as where the company's growth comes from next. Going by the report, these projects currently sit higher on the internal list of priorities than the phone roadmap does.

Nothing Is Reorganising Itself Around AI Products

Photo Credit: Nothing Community

For a brand whose whole public personality was the Nothing Phone (1) and its Glyph lights, that is a fairly serious rearranging of the furniture.

Four Products In The Opening Wave

The first batch is said to span both Nothing and CMF:

CMF Ear Clip Buds
Nothing Headphones (Gen 2)
Nothing Smartwatch
CMF Speakers

A couple of those are unfamiliar ground for the company. Speakers would put Nothing into the smart speaker business for the first time, a shelf currently crowded by Bpat, Noise and roughly a hundred Bluetooth boxes at your neighborhood electronics shop. The see-through styling the brand is known for is said to carry over to all of it, so that could be the differentiating factor.

The watch has backing from elsewhere too. Tipster Yogesh Brar said on 28 July that a Nothing-branded smartwatch is close to ready for September, priced below $300, going on sale in a handful of countries, and carrying the usual design cues. CMF has sold watches before, but the parent brand never has.

The Squeeze Behind The Shift

This move is being made from a tight spot rather than a comfortable one. Digit reported on 24 July, quoting several sources, that Nothing is winding down sales in at least a dozen countries, the Middle East, Japan and parts of Europe among them, while cutting worldwide staff by 40 percent and taking a heavy axe to its research teams in China and London.

The report puts the Phone (4b) at roughly 20,000 units shipped globally, with the Phone (4a) and Phone (4a) Pro managing around 150,000 between them, against nearly 2 million units through 2025. Counterpoint figures quoted in the same report show memory costs have quadrupled since September 2025, and India's under Rs 20,000 bracket has shrunk 45 percent year on year.

CMF has already lost a generation to this. There will be no CMF Phone 3 Pro following the CMF Phone 2 Pro, with the company blaming RAM and storage prices, and Akis Evangelidis saying a successor existed but could not be made worth buying at a CMF price. Himanshu Tandon, who built the sub-brand in India, has left.

So the AI plan adds up. Earbuds, headphones and watches earn more per unit, need a fraction of the memory, and keep Nothing out of a price war it cannot currently win.

The Calendar Points At Cupertino

August and September are the stated target for the opening launches, which would land them shortly before Apple holds its yearly iPhone show, an event that usually falls in September.

The report flags that roadmaps this early are subject to change, and I would repeat that. Nothing hasn't confirmed any of it.