Err… That’s definitively AI.
AI is just any computer algorithm that does a task that would be aimed to require human intelligence.
Identifying text in an image is a non-trivial task, so OCR is a type of AI algorithm.
That said, I assume “AI phones” are probably not using the term AI in the general sense; presumably they just mean that it uses MM-LLMs somehow.
You can get a cheap mp3 player for literally $5. Digital textbooks can be viewed just fine on a laptop, and schools have hundreds of those.
Smart phones are addiction machines. I’m very glad to see schools banning them. Hopefully, parents take note and realize how harmful they are for child development and start buying them dumb phones instead until they’re older (16+).