The Best AI Apps For Android Phones
There are mixed opinions on artificial intelligence (AI), and there's no clear way to know who's right. Some scientists have given an ominous warning about artificial intelligence and countless people have spoken about AI possibly being dangerous or becoming sentient.
None of these warnings or claims have ever been officially proven, and there are a ton of people on the other side of the AI argument, speaking only about how AI can be helpful to the world. For example, NASA is using AI to design hardware for space and there are plenty of chatbots out there that can help with mental health, language learning, trip planning, or school subjects.
As to whether or not AI will ultimately have a positive or negative impact on the overall population, we don't know. However, if you want to see AI in action and experience it for yourself, we've rounded up some great AI apps for your Android device.
Google Assistant - AI-powered assistant
Many people with Android devices use Google Assistant as their preferred virtual assistant. Whether you're trying to play a song on Spotify, turn on your flashlight, or set a timer while cooking dinner, Google Assistant utilizes AI technology to help you get the best assistance each time.
This helpful virtual assistant relies on artificial intelligence to understand what users are saying and then uses that input to make suggestions or carry out a specific task. More specifically, Google Assistant uses natural language processing and machine learning aspects of AI tech. This means you can perform simple tasks with Google Assistant, like calling or texting a friend, adding an item to your shopping list, or setting an alarm. You can also dabble with more complex commands, like saying "Hey Google, good morning," to initiate a series of tasks on your smartphone or other smart devices around your home.
Google Assistant can even perform multiple tasks at once as long as you include the word "and." For example, you can say, "Hey Google, what time is it and what is the weather?" This is an advantage over other virtual assistants, most of which can still only handle a single task at a time.
Bing - AI chatbot and search engine
For the longest time, people turned to Google as their primary search engine. Now, there's a search engine that's actually providing some competition – Bing. Recently, Microsoft incorporated ChatGPT, AI chatbot developed by OpenAI and initially launched as a prototype in November 2022, into its search engine. While Bing provided decent results prior to adding ChatGPT, it's undeniably a better searching experience now.
Microsoft describes the new experience of using Bing as akin to having a "research assistant, personal planner, and creative partner" with you at all times. When you're chatting with Bing, perhaps trying to find some inspiration for a short story or searching for the perfect spot to take your next vacation, you'll feel like you're chatting with an actual person. Rather than showing you the most relevant links and making you do the research yourself, Bing's AI chatbot will do it for you by consolidating the most popular and reliable sources and presenting them to you in the form of a concise answer.
Replika - Friendly AI chatbot
Replika is one of the most popular AI chatbots available. Powered by artificial intelligence, Replika acts just like a friend would in real life. It'll listen to you talk about what you're going through, work towards specific goals like positive thinking, and help entertain or calm you down in a stressful situation.
Since Replika uses AI technology that gets smarter with the more information it takes in, your conversations will get better and more realistic over time. When you download the app, you can create a customized 3D avatar with a unique name and style. As you continue chatting with your personalized Replika avatar, it'll start to develop its own unique personality and feel more like a real human relationship. In fact, a few Replika users have even claimed that its avatar seems like it's sentient and has a mind of its own, and this aspect of neural network machine learning within AI has some engineers worried. However, many scientists think that current AI models are "simply mimicking sentience" and that truly self-aware artificial intelligence could be half a century or more away.
So while chatting with your personalized Replika avatar may feel a bit too real at times, just know that it's learning from your previous conversations. It could be taking on a lot of your personality aspects as well, learning from your nuanced speech and ways of looking at the world or certain situations.
Wysa - AI therapy chatbot
Wysa is a great AI chatbot to talk to when you're stressed, anxious, or otherwise feeling mentally bogged down. While Wysa is not a replacement for seeing an actual therapist, it can help greatly throughout the day or during the hours that your therapist isn't available.
It's free to chat with Wysa, and the chat bot can provide you with helpful coping skills for anxiety relief, stress management, and bouts of depression. Even looking at the cute penguin animations of Wysa can help boost your mood. You can start a chat with Wysa whenever you're feeling bad or set aside daily time to chat and get inspiration and motivation from spiritual meditations or mood trackers.
The Wysa app also features a ton of helpful meditations to help ground you when you can't seem to control your thoughts. The app incorporates research-backed CBT, DBT, yoga, and meditation techniques to help with everything from mental health issues to coping with sudden loss to fixing a broken sleep schedule.
The best way to use Wysa is as an additional tool for the real people you have helping you in real life, like family, friends, or a mental health professional. However, since Wysa is an AI chatbot, you can start a conversation at any time, and the conversations can be as long or as short as you need them to be. Wysa will learn which things seem to help you the most and potentially recommend better courses of action.
Duolingo - Language learning app with AI
Many people use Duolingo because it offers a gamified language learning experience, but there's a lot of artificial intelligence worked into the app beneath the surface as Duolingo experts work with AI to help scale and personalize each user's language learning experience.
AI is also used in Duolingo's curriculum design and content creation, but these aspects of the language learning process rely more on human experts. Where AI gets a chance to shine with Duolingo is when users complete lessons. The AI in Duolingo learns more as it gathers information. As users complete individual exercises, the AI gauges how many correct versus incorrect answers there are and adjusts the difficulty of the exercises users will see in the future while ensuring that users will continue to see words they haven't encountered recently.
Duolingo incorporates speaking exercises into its language learning courses, and AI plays a vital role in this feature. If you've ever wondered how the app grades you on your pronunciation, the answer is AI! Artificial intelligence is trained to recognize all kinds of different voices and then accurately hear what you're saying and compare it to the multiple variations it knows to be true.
Duolingo has also tapped into GPT-4, ChatGPT's successor, to bring even more AI tech to the app. This is part of a paid subscription to Duolingo, which allows you to chat with an AI bot in the language you're learning for real-time conversation practice.
Lensa - AI image alteration tool
Lensa is an all-in-one photo editing app that's powered by AI. If you take a selfie and don't want to mess with navigating individual edit settings to perfect your photo before posting it to social media, Lensa's AI magic can do it for you! With a single tap, Lensa optimizes your photo and gets it ready for your socials.
You could also opt for a more unique approach. Rather than simply edit and airbrush your selfie, you can use it to generate gorgeous digital art that looks like you. Lensa takes one of your selfies and uses it to create multiple unique images that almost look cartoon-like. Lensa is hands down one of the best AI image generators designed specifically for selfies.
You can also adjust your background using artificial intelligence. If you don't want to edit your selfie to keep a natural look, you can leave your face alone and just mess with the background behind you. You can blur the background or completely replace it with a realistic-looking road, building, green trees, a nicely decorated building, and so on.
Socratic - AI studying and learning tool
Socratic is an immensely helpful AI learning app for students in high school or college. If there's ever a subject or specific topic you're struggling with, you can use Socratic to help you understand. Backed by Google AI, Socratic searches for the best online resources that will help you understand any concepts you're struggling with.
Simply ask Socratic a question, wait for it to comb through the internet for the best results, and then view Socratic's custom lesson based on what it found. The app partners with teachers and experts to help deliver visual explanations for each subject, making it easy to master almost any concept through videos, step-by-step explanations, and more.
Socratic is able to assist efficiently with algebra, geometry, trigonometry, biology, chemistry, physics, history, and literature. If you need educational help with something that Socratic doesn't offer yet, try out Microsoft's new AI-powered Bing app.
Youper - CBT-focused AI chatbot
If you struggle throughout the day with your mood or motivation levels, Youper might be the AI app you need to try. Youper is an AI chatbot that can help you turn your thinking around using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, also referred to as CBT. With CBT techniques, you can learn to bridge the gap between your current negative thoughts and the positive thoughts you want to replace them with.
CBT techniques are usually carried out with a therapist in weekly sessions, but if you don't have the time or money to regularly see a therapist, Youper can be the next best thing. In fact, Youper was created by therapists in an effort to make CBT techniques available to everyone wherever and whenever they need it.
With Youper, you'll be guided through interactive CBT therapy exercises by an AI chatbot. Throughout your journey, the AI chatbot can help you learn to manage stress, cope with anxiety, halt negative thinking and rumination, feel more motivated, build self-esteem, and ultimately improve your mental health.
WOMBO Dream - AI image generator
WOMBO Dream is another one of the best AI image generators you can get for your Android device. There are two ways you can use WOMBO Dream to create awesome digital images. You can either upload an existing photo that you've already taken, or you can use your words to bring your vision to life.
If there's a photo you've already taken on your smartphone, like a picture of your cat or a tree with a tire swing outside your house, WOMBO Dream can use that photo as a visual base. The app will then present you with multiple options to choose from, including different art styles and color palettes. If you like what you see, you can download it and share it on social media! If not, you can give it another go and guide WOMBO Dream toward creating a better image with more specific clues.
However, if you consider yourself to be a wordsmith, you might opt for the written prompt route. WOMBO Dream can recreate practically anything you can think of, and the more details the better, so go crazy with your written prompt. Write something simple like "alien space station," pick an art style, and see what WOMBO creates. Or, write something specific like "a unicorn sitting at the end of a rainbow eating popcorn." Whatever you can think of, WOMBO Dream can draw it up for you.
Freeletics - Fitness app with AI trainer
Going to the gym and working with a trainer is a great experience because someone can watch what you're doing and tell you how to make improvements. However, what if your schedule doesn't allow you to go to the gym during normal training hours? With the paid version of the Freeletics app, you'll get an AI-powered personal trainer that you can use at any time, day or night.
Your Freeletics Coach can help you develop a personalized workout and then adapt that workout based on whether you're traveling, short on time, or recovering from being sick. Every step of the way, your AI-powered personal trainer will be there to figure out what's working — and what's not — in your fitness regimen.
There are 20 unique Training Journeys in the app, each with a different fitness focus. You can choose a Training Journey to make your goals clear and then have your workouts designed around it. There are over 180 total exercises and thousands of HIIT workout variations to experiment with in the paid version, or you can give the free version a try first, which includes 20 HIIT bodyweight workouts alongside a selection of exercises and audio sessions. You can also try out the Freeletics Coach experience with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Iris - AI-assisted dating app
The modern dating scene can often be interesting, to say the least. Iris aims to help you improve your search for a significant other, or even just a friend, with its incorporated AI engine.
Perfecting your dating or friendship bio can be an intimidating task, but it's certainly an important one. It helps give people an overall idea of what you're like as a person and the type of person you're looking for. Iris uses ChatGPT to help you write your bio as long as you're able to provide important tidbits about what you like to do, your personality traits, hobbies, and so on.
Then, Iris uses AI machine learning to learn your preferences based on your in-app actions. If the app realizes that you tend to prefer someone with brown hair or hazel eyes, it'll start personalizing your matches so that more people with those features show up for you. This'll help you filter through the large dating pool and hopefully help you find your forever match that much quicker.
AI Tales - AI-fuelled puzzle stories
AI Tales takes story generation to a whole new level and puts you at the center of many puzzling stories. All of the stories in AI Tales start out at the same place, but where you end up is entirely up to you and the artificial intelligence technology.
Throughout the story, you'll be instructed to choose an action or enter your own personalized answer while the AI continues the story with you. There are countless stories to explore, all in different environments. You can check out an island, trek through a forest, explore a castle, or try out a scientist-focused adventure.
Even if you get through all of the available stories and you start a new one from the same initial prompts, you'll end up getting a wildly different experience because AI forms a unique story every single time. Every story makes you the protagonist, and the combination of pre-written parts and AI-fuelled interjections are captivating enough to keep you entertained for hours at a time.