"One in three smartphones to be shipped in 2020 will natively embed machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities at the chipset level," the report said. "Apple, with its Bionic system on chip (SoC), proliferating across its complete portfolio over the next couple of years, will drive native AI adoption in smartphones.

Its universal adoption of AI-capable SoCs will likely enable Apple to lead the AI-capable chip market through 2020."

Qualcomm, however, will soon likely catch up with the unlocking of AI chipsets in the coming few months, the report said. "It should be able to catch-up and is expected to be second in the market in terms of volume by 2020, followed by Samsung and Huawei."

The report predicted AI smartphones will be able to "perform a variety of tasks such as processing natural languages, including real-time translation; (and) helping users take better photos by intelligently identifying objects and adjusting camera settings accordingly."

AI chipsets will also "recognize user behaviour to identify if the phone is being misused, analyzing email and other apps for things like phishing attacks," the report said. "Machine learning algorithms can be used to generate health and lifestyle guidance for users by analyzing combinations of sensor data and user behaviour."

The report expected AI smartphones to "proliferate rapidly at the top-end of the market, and to relatively quickly filter into mid-range devices from the mid to latter part of 2018." (Yonhap)