Today's cumbersome interactions are, Mr Ferrell argues, an awkward transitionary stage in the evolution of mobile devices that predictive intelligence will see off.
For one thing, predictive intelligence can be creepy.
Apple, which looked somewhat behind the curve on predictive intelligence, bought Cue, a personalised-agenda app, in October.
Its Google Now service is arguably the most advanced incarnation of predictive intelligence; installed in many millions of Android devices, it is certainly the most widespread.
With the advent of wearable devices that support fewer input methods, like smart watches and Google Glass, there will be a need for less interaction and more automation.Google, for its part, considers predictive intelligence to be the future of search.
As clever as this is, however, Siri still feels more like a technology demo than a really useful assistant.The next generation of assistant software aims to go one step further by pursuing an approach known as "predictive intelligence".
Two months ago, the company announced the creation of a Strategic Innovation Group, staffed by 1,500 employees who are pursuing, among other projects, one of Mr. McConnell's favorites: the development of "predictive" intelligence tools that its clients can use to scour the Web for anomalies in behavior and warn of terror or cyberattacks.
This is called anticipatory computing or predictive intelligence.
Like 6Sense, other predictive intelligence companies use machine learning algorithms and behavioral data among their sources.
But political polls are just one example of how predictive intelligence is playing out in our daily lives.
