Qualcomm CEO Amon: Agent Era Is Here, With Inference and Edge Computing Taking Center Stage

At the 2026 Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm president and CEO Cristiano Amon shared his views on the AI era, saying that the agent era has arrived. He said inference is becoming critical and the edge will play an important role, positioning Snapdragon as a processor for the agent era.

“What the agent era promises is not having AI do everything for us, but making technology more useful, more intuitive and more attuned to people's needs,” Amon said. He said a great agent experience should be personalized, proactive, responsive and trustworthy, and above all effortless for users.

To deliver that experience, Amon said two things are needed: devices that remain intuitive, secure, reliable and responsive, and agents that can understand context, interpret intent, coordinate tasks and take actions with user consent. He said Snapdragon is designed to address both needs across phones, PCs, cars, glasses and other devices that people rely on throughout the day.

During the same event, Qualcomm also introduced the sixth-generation Snapdragon 8 Super Prime and Snapdragon 8 Prime mobile platforms, which the company described as the world's fastest mobile CPUs.