On the surface, there's very little to distinguish Huawei's Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro from the Pixel 2 XL or Galaxy S8. They have the same 6-inch screens, small bezels, curved edges, and sleek design as their premium peers, but Huawei isn't trying to wow you with the Mate 10's beauty. It wants you to fall in love with its brain. And the Mate 10s have a big, beautiful one. Powered by the Kirin 970 chip, Huawei's newest flagships aren't just about speed boost and power efficiency.

The next big thing in phones: high-end handsets that harness artificial intelligence to drive advanced features like smart photography, machine translation, and predictive behavior. While we're waiting for the Pixel 2 and the iPhone X to show up in the stores, Huawei has joined the AI fray with its new handset, the Mate 10 Pro. This is the company's first smartphone with a chip tuned to power artificial-intelligence software. Inside the phone's new Kirin 970 processor (which Huawei designed and built itself) is a component the Chinese manufacturer calls the Neural Processing Unit, and it's this corner of the phone's brains that fuels the machine-learning features. I spent some time with the new Mate 10, and the function where I could most clearly spot some intelligent behavior is the Translate app, which offers offline translation between different languages.

Smartphone makers are betting on camera features to help their flagship devices stand out. Samsung launched its first dual-cameras on the Note 8, Sony introduced super slow-mo video-recording on its XZ Premium and XZ1 series, while LG equipped the V30 with a glass lens that boasts a wide f/1.6 aperture. But Huawei has chosen a different route. In lieu of a new phone, the company showed off its Kirin 970 chip at IFA 2017, calling attention to the chipset's AI capabilities. The Kirin 970 will power Huawei's next flagship phone, the Mate 10, which is set to launch at a separate October event in Munich.

It's time to call it: Amazon has conquered the smart home industry. From connected appliance makers and game creators to television networks and even financial institutions, everyone is jumping aboard the Alexa train. But Amazon is eyeing a new domain: your smartphone. And its bid for a presence in phones faces stiff competition from existing assistants. Still, when Huawei announced at CES that it would bring Alexa to its Mate 9 flagship, we were intrigued.

Alexa is making its move. While Amazon's virtual assistant has been tied to its own devices since its introduction more than two years ago, it is now beginning its an all-out assault on Siri and Google Assistant as it looks to establish a foothold on iOS and Android. But entering enemy territory isn't going to be easy. Apple and Google have both built their AI aides deeply into their mobile operating systems, so Alexa has to live inside apps for now. On the iPhone it's inside the Amazon shopping app, and on the Mate 9 (the only Android phone that supports it), it's accessible via a dedicated Huawei Alexa app. So to use it, you'll need to open the respective app before you can start asking questions.

Honor is marketing the phone as having eight curves -- all four sides, front and back. Within the first hour of using the Honor Magic, one thing is already abundantly clear: this is a different type of phone, unlike anything Honor, or other Chinese phone brands, have done before. As I covered in the hands-on piece, the Honor Magic is a phone with a futuristic idea: a phone that is aware of where it is, and what it's about to be asked to do. Whether it gets all the way home is a topic of debate, but what's inarguable is that the Honor Magic is a bold attempt at something new and exciting, and a sign of the future. The Honor Magic feels and looks like a meticulously crafted piece of jewelry.

Hot on the heels of its addition to the Amazon app on the iPhone, Alexa is looking to make its presence known on Android, too. Huawei has announced that the virtual assistant is on its way to the Mate 9, making it the first Android phone to receive Amazon's AI aide. With Alexa on the Mate 9, you'll be able to do many of the things the Echo and Dot can do, including control your home automation devices while you're away. Huawei is touting its smart home capabilities as the flagship feature of Alexa on the Mate 9, but it can also handle many of the other skills Alexa has on Amazon's devices, including the ability to play games, shop at Amazon.com, get news updates, track your workouts, and play podcasts. Furthermore, you can use it to get information about people, places, and events, check your Google or Outlook calendar, find local businesses, and get weather and traffic updates.

Silicon Valley investor and web pioneer Marc Andreessen said in 2011 that "software is eating the world." The explosion of app ecosystems seems to prove his point, but things have changed dramatically even since then. These days, it might be more accurate to say that "AI is fueling the software that's eating the world," but I've never been very quotable. In any case, it's not impossible to ignore the normalization of artificial intelligence at this year's Mobile World Congress -- even if a resurrected 17-year-old phone did end up stealing the show. When it comes to the intersection of smartphones and AI, Motorola had the most surprising news at the show.

When it comes to the intersection of smartphones and AI, Motorola had the most surprising news at the show. In case you missed it, Motorola is working with Amazon (and Harman Kardon, most likely) to build a Moto Mod that will make use of Alexa. Even to me, someone who cooled on the Mods concept after an initial wave of interesting accessories slowed to a trickle, this seems like a slam dunk. Even better, Motorola product chief Dan Dery described what the company ultimately wanted to achieve: a way to get assistants like Alexa to integrate more closely with the personal data we keep on our smartphones. In his mind, for instance, it would be ideal to ask an AI make a reservation at a restaurant mentioned in an email a day earlier.

The U.S. technology giant's move comes after Amazon continues to aggressively push Alexa onto new devices. At CES, Amazon announced Alexa would be integrated with LG refrigerators and even Ford cars. But it began to step on Google's feet when Amazon announced that Alexa would be on the Huawei Mate 9 smartphone in the U.S., which runs Android. "It is little surprise Google has come out with all guns blazing at MWC. It must be reeling from the decision to include Amazon's Alexa on the Mate 9 when it was announced," Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, told CNBC by email on Tuesday.