Nokia to roll out its own AI assistant at MWC, but it’s not what you think

Apart from the expected flagship-unveiling matinee (we can’t wait for the Honor Magic 6 Pro, and the Xiaomi 14 Ultra among others to go global), this year’s MWC (Mobile World Congress) has something else up its sleeve.

Something from Nokia – nope, not another easily-repairable handset like the Nokia G22 (which got a new So Peach color option recently). Instead, the legendary Finnish company will present its own AI assistant.

Before you go “ugh” and “meh”: it’s not what you think it is. This isn’t Nokia’s answer to Google’s Gemini or the rest of the hot AI assistants (‘hot’ as in ‘popular’, don’t be getting any thoughts now!) out there.

Reuters reports that Nokia’s AI-powered tool generates messages for industrial workers, “including warnings about faulty machinery based on real-time data” and even recommends ways to boost factory output.

The tool is called “MX Workmate” and will expand on Nokia's existing communications technology used by industrial clients by harnessing generative AI large language models (LLMs) to write human-like text, the company said in a statement.

The tool’s first version will be presented at the upcoming MWC at the end of February in Barcelona. Some aspects of the AI assistant are still in the research stage, as the developers want to be sure the toll doesn’t succumb to AI hallucination – that’s when the AI provides a convincing but completely made-up answer.

“The tool needs to be accurate, clear and right. And it needs to be traceable and moderated”, Stephane Daeuble, Head of Enterprise Solutions Marketing at Nokia, explained. He said there would be initial safeguards such as a person validating the AI prompts.

Nokia already supplies 4G and 5G technology for in-house communications that helps industrial companies connect to data from machine sensors. “Now the idea is we have an assistant that's there to help the worker make sense of all this data”, Daeuble said.

"Maybe a year, a year and a half, before we see the first real implementation," he concluded.