To date, most smartphone manufacturers have approached mobile AI by trying to throw a bunch of ideas at the wall and see what sticks. Samsung, Google, and Apple have all been implementing AI on their smartphones in a way that feels disjointed. Some features are better than others, and some are genuinely useful. However, it’s tricky to describe Google AI, Galaxy AI, or Apple Intelligence as a unified experience.
After more than a year of sitting on the sidelines, Nothing is debuting its mobile AI with Nothing OS 3 on the Nothing Phone 3a series. It notably chose to work on these AI concepts instead of building the flagship Phone 3, and I criticized that move. More than six months later, the move might have paid off because the Essential Space on the Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro is arguably my favorite AI feature so far — and I’ve tried them all.
Essential Space is the hub for AI features in Nothing OS, and it’s designed specifically for the Phone 3a series. Both the Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro have the Essential Key, which is a hardware button that lets you immediately save things to your Essential Space. It works anywhere in the operating system and can serve as a “memory” for things you do on your phone.
Nothing might’ve deserved more faith in the first place because it’s impressive to see in hindsight how similar Essential Space sounds compared to Nothing CEO Carl Pei’s teasers from June 2024. “It’s important we get the product right, integrating hardware and AI in a way that is both useful and brings a smile to people’s faces,” Pei said.
With a hardware Essential Key and an AI-based Essential Space, the Nothing Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro seem to have delivered on the company’s promises.
So, the Essential Space is like an AI “memory” for your smartphone. If that goal sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same ambitious feat other AI features like Pixel Screenshots and Microsoft Recall tried to achieve.
In practice, those tools aren’t really serving as your smartphone’s memory. They’re more like record-keepers. Pixel Screenshots will organize your screenshots, but it’s on you to remember why you wanted to screenshot what you captured in the first place. So, the app becomes like the screenshots folder in your phone’s gallery app — a wasteland for old and forgotten screen saves.
Unlike those offerings, Essential Space sets itself apart by doing more in one place. In my hands-on with the Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro, I described Essential Space as being similar to a hybrid of Pixel Screenshots, Pixel Recorder, and Keep Notes. Those are some of my favorite apps on the Google Pixel 9, but I never knew I needed them to be more tightly integrated until I used the Nothing Phone 3a.
I can take a screenshot with the Essential Key by clicking it once and quickly add a text note or a voice note right there. This helps me chronicle why I saved something, and it also gives the Essential Space some context as to why it’s important. From there, my screenshots will get sorted, notes analyzed, and voice recordings transcribed.
On a Google Pixel or Samsung Galaxy S25, I would’ve had to use multiple apps to get the same experience. It would’ve taken a lot longer, too.
The best part of Essential Space is what it can do on its own after you’ve taken a screenshot or recorded a note. It’ll identify any action items or important details in your saves and can remind you of them later. For example, I added a discount coupon to the Essential Space and got a push notification a day before it was about to expire. On another occasion, I got a reminder to go on my next running workout after I saved a screenshot of the results from my last one.
To be clear, Nothing’s implementation of mobile AI isn’t perfect. The Essential Key is poorly designed, as it’s too large, too shiny, and positioned too close to the power button. Meanwhile, the Essential Space app could use more features. It’s a hub for your Essential Key saves, and only that.
The app is so close to being my go-to for notes and reminders, but there’s no way to create a note, recording, or reminder in the app without using the Key.
But that’s all forgivable because the whole experience works together seamlessly and lives under one roof — the Essential Space app. I can’t say the same for Google AI and Galaxy AI, and all the independent and disjointed features under those umbrellas.
Google can easily copy Nothing’s approach, and it should
AI’s surge over the past few years has involved companies trying new things, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and copying each other. As such, brands like Google and Samsung should take a close watch on what Nothing is doing with the Essential Space. It wouldn’t take much for either company to develop something similar for their flagship phones.
They already have the individual features built, and some of them are better than what Nothing offers. They just haven’t figured out how to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that makes sense, and somehow, it seems like Nothing has.
The Essential phone
The Nothing Phone 3a offers plenty of value, with great performance, fantastic cameras, a unique design, and an AI chip that knows how to get things done.
