Samsung Partners with Glance AI for Controversial Lock Screen Shopping Experience

Samsung teams up with Glance to use your face in AI-generated lock screen ads

On an average day, you might unlock or look at your phone dozens of times, which makes the lock screen a hot property for advertising. Ad tech company Glance has been taking advantage of that for years with its ad-laden lock screen experiences, but it's going further in the age of AI. Samsung and Glance have teamed up to deliver a new "AI shopping" experience that uses a selfie to create custom fashion ads. This feature is rolling out to numerous Samsung phones in the next month. Glance has been around for a while -- its non-AI lock screen experience has been bundled on various phones from Samsung, Motorola, and others. Before the AI era, Glance lured people in with promises of pretty pictures and news alerts, which came with a side of ads and tracking. The new Glance AI feature has all that, but it adds an unsettling face-stealing layer to the experience. The AI-infused Glance will arrive on Samsung phones as both a standalone app and a fully integrated lock screen. Thankfully, this is a fully opt-in experience. If you never open or set up Glance, you can keep using the normal lock screen on your phone. Should you choose to wade into the murky waters of AI shopping, Glance will have you take a selfie and provide some basic body type details. From there, it uses Google Gemini and Imagen to create fashion ads tailored to you -- because they are you. Your lock screen will be populated with images of you "in outfits and destinations [you] would never imagine." Naturally, you will be able to buy the looks chosen for you with a tap, which fills Glance's coffers. We've looked over Glance's AI privacy policy, and nothing stands out as unusual for the tech industry (which still isn't good). By using the service, you agree to some tracking, including your general location, and some of that data will be shared with partners. However, this all feels a bit more creepy when a service is churning out AI images of you. Glance says it will retain the biometric data used to create your digital avatar for 12 months from your last interaction with the service or until you manually delete your account. The company claims that your images won't be used for any other purpose or shared with third parties without your consent. Glance is not the only company hoping to motivate buyers with custom AI images. At Google I/O last month, the company unveiled shopping in its AI Mode search product. Virtual try-on allows you to generate AI images of yourself on demand to see how you look in items that appear in the shopping results. The Glance AI experience is somewhat more alarming because it's constantly generating new images of you wearing clothing, which may be based on "trending content, local events, and social media moments." If you are totally on board with this kind of shopping experience or are just morbidly curious, you can test the service in the standalone Glance AI app in the Play Store. On Samsung phones, the app and lock screen will roll out via the company's Galaxy Store. That process begins today on all phones from the Galaxy S22, S23, S24, and S25 lineups. Glance says it hopes to have its AI shopping fully deployed on an even wider range of Samsung phones within 30 days.

Galaxy Lockscreens Can Use AI to Show You in Outfits You Might Want to Buy

Alex Valdes from Bellevue, Washington has been pumping content into the Internet river for quite a while, including stints at MSNBC.com, MSN, Bing, MoneyTalksNews, Tipico and more. He admits to being somewhat fascinated by the Cambridge coffee webcam back in the Roaring '90s. Starting this week, some Galaxy phone users can try an AI shopping experience from their lock screens that shows how they'd look in certain outfits. It's a partnership between Samsung and Glance AI, and uses AI to let users see real photos of themselves dressed in certain fashions and styles -- with a link to purchase a click away, of course. The Galaxy-Glance AI rollout began this week for users of certain devices, and the AI shopping app will be available to all users within 30 days, according to Glance AI. The new technology is available as an app and as a lockscreen, and is optional. A Glance AI spokesperson said that "Samsung will be doing promotions on all their devices to educate user on this new AI tech, and users will have an option to install and activate." The Glance AI app takes an image of the user, then generates images of how that person would look in certain outfits. The user can choose to buy the clothes with a tap. Glance AI said it will leverage its partnership with more than 400 US and worldwide clothing brands to create recommendations and fulfill orders. To use the app, users can take a selfie on the spot, upload an image of themselves or grant access to their photo gallery. The app will be available for download in the Samsung Galaxy Store, and users can opt in with a setting to allow the use of the app from their lock screen. This latest AI feature is a new spin on the so-called "try on" technology that allows would-be customers to use AI to see how they look in different clothes and accessories. In other try-on tech, such as that from Google, users can find clothes and see how they would look in them or get different looks based on recommendations they give the AI. Glance AI's new app goes a step further and tries to infer and predict what outfits customers will look good in and spark them to purchase those clothes. In short, Glance AI will show you dressed in an outfit, and maybe you'll like it enough to buy it. "Glance AI is driven by a core human truth: we want to become the best version of ourselves. What stands between that aspiration and reality is the awareness of what is possible or access to platforms that enable this," said Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO, Glance & InMobi.

Samsung phones are getting a weird AI shopping platform nobody asked for

Glance AI, a brand owned by mobile advertising company InMobi, has announced a partnership with the Samsung Galaxy Store to roll out its e-commerce platform to Galaxy phones in the US. The company's app centers around what it calls "a Generative AI shopping platform," which is a serious contender for the most cursed phrase I've read today. The "experience" comprises both a standalone app and a lock screen component to try and sell you clothes. Crucially, the whole thing is "fully opt-in," which, thank Christ. But even if you opt out -- which you absolutely should! -- this feels like a sign of things to come as advertisers try to leverage AI to sell us more stuff. Buckle up. You may remember InMobi as the company ruining Motorola's otherwise decent budget phones with a bunch of e-commerce nonsense. The version of this that Galaxy owners might see centers on a feature that uses gen AI and a photo of you to create images of you wearing different outfits, with new "looks" available every day. Unsurprisingly, you can buy the clothes with a tap. This can all happen on your lock screen, and for some reason you can save these AI generated creations as lock screen wallpapers. I will not be doing this. Glance AI's lock screen features appear to vary by region; in India, where InMobi was founded, Glance lock screens show ads in addition to things like news updates and sports scores. The implementation on Samsung phones doesn't seem to include ads, mercifully, at least for now. I don't know about you but I will absolutely throw my phone into the sea the first time I see an ad on my lock screen, so I hope this never comes to pass. Glance AI is rolling out to Samsung Galaxy S22, S23, S24, and S25-series phones starting today, and should reach "a full 100% scale" in the next 30 days. Presumably it'll arrive as an optional download in the Galaxy Store when that happens, though I wouldn't be surprised if it comes with a push notification encouraging users to go download it.

Samsung's new AI partnership could reshape how you outfit your wardrobe

Samsung sends out public safety alert urging Galaxy users to enable new security features Summary Glance AI creates hyper-personal recommendations and realistic visualizations based on individuals' bodies and decades of commercial and fashion trends. The app aims to revolutionize how we interact with phones by integrating fashion inspiration into the lock screen experience. Glance doesn't sell user data, show ads, charge for subscriptions or push sponsored recommendations at present. The concept of a try-on app is simple: upload a selfie, pick an outfit, and observe how the outfit would look on you. But Samsung wants to upend the way you shop, and stop you from limiting yourself. To do that, it's partnered with Glance, an Indian AI company with ambitious goals for redefining the way we use our phones. Glance doesn't want you to dig through your home screen and open an app to go clothes shopping. It's making fashion an integral part of the Galaxy lock screen experience by sharing a wide variety of thoughtfully designed, trendy, and even unconventional looks that you might never have considered without extra inspiration. It can access hundreds of clothing brands, doesn't shove ads in your face, and doesn't cost anything to use. So, what's the catch? Let Gemini build your wardrobe for you Better than a trip to the AI mall Source: Glance Glance has been poking around the lock screen environment for years. Its lock screen implementation boasts hundreds of millions of users across South Asia, where it began as an AI-tailored news and content delivery service. The company tried to make inroads with a similar integration on Motorola smartphones over a year ago, but it didn't get much traction. Things are a little different this time around. Rather than act as a catch-all service for current events, weather, and other features already covered by various widgets, Glance is honing its approach to focus on fashion. Even further, the lock screen implementation is currently available only on Samsung Galaxy devices. Related Google thinks AI is ready to be your personal stylist Shop what you imagine Posts We reached out to the Glance team, who explained how the Gemini-based and Vertex-implemented AI tool works. A Commerce Intelligence Model makes what it deems "hyper-personal recommendations" based on decades of commerce data including trends, cultures, and consumer behavior. A generative Experience model creates a realistic visualization based on parameters including body type, skin tone, style, season, and more to simulate how the clothing looks on a user. Finally, an agentic Transaction Journey Model predicts shopping intent to pair the look with the best-matched products from a huge selection of catalogs. Glance AI also leverages trending content, local events, and social media moments to make recommendations fresh, relevant, and engaging. High-speed inferencing helps deliver options such as flash sales and trend-driven commerce, making every shopping experience unique and effortless. -- Glance The app is readily available to Galaxy users on the Play Store. In fact, since it soft-launched weeks ago, Glance AI already claims 1.5 million active users, with half of them returning to the app weekly for inspiration. It's still early, but initial metrics indicate it's been pretty good at engaging users so far. Close What it looks like to use the Glance app. According to a Glance spokesperson, "Currently the app is free to use. There are no ads, sponsored recommendations or subscriptions at present." While it's free for now, there's no guarantee it always will be, but Indian telecoms giant Jio did invest $200 million specifically to expand Glance outside the Asian subcontinent. That's a good start, considering how, at first glance, a cynical user might view this as a thinly veiled (and artificial) advertisement vector. That's a realistic concern, too, as the recent Glance integration with Motorola phones would periodically nag users to re-enable the lock screen feature if turned off. Related Google's AI Mode will soon be able to buy products for you But only when the price is right Posts It seems as though Glance has tried its hand at a few techniques for getting into the US market. Ideally, it's learned from the various attempts, and can deliver a user-friendly service that adds value to phones, without getting in the way or spamming users with marketing. Assuming people continue to engage with and buy via the platform, it could be a stepping stone towards the Glance company reaching its lofty goals of revolutionizing how we interact with phones and their most accessible features.

Lock Screen Ads Are Coming to Your Galaxy Phone

Here's Why So Many People Love Noisy Mechanical Keyboards (But I Still Don't Get It) Samsung is partnering with Glance to bring "a new AI Commerce platform" to the lock screens of Galaxy phones in the United States. It won't be enabled automatically, but it's still not great to see lockscreen advertisements coming to phones that already cost hundreds and thousands of dollars. The new service is owned and operated by Glance, a tech company founded in 2019 that runs a lock screen advertising platform. That's an especially valuable (and annoying) advertising space, so Glance has found some success in India, Japan, and southeast Asia, and it started testing the service in the United States with Motorola and Verizon last year. Glance has received funding from Google and Jio Platforms, among other companies. Samsung phones will get a 'Glance AI' as an application and lock screen, which is "a fully opt-in experience." The primary focus is shopping: you can upload a picture of yourself to see "hyper-real images" of you in various outfits available to purchase from "more than 400 leading brands in the US and beyond." Each look can be saved as a lockscreen wallpaper or saved to the device. Related No One Cares About the Galaxy S25 Edge Last week, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S25 Edge, already its fourth flagship phone halfway through this year. This latest addition was meant to be the most flashy and eye-catching of the S25 family, but it turns out people just aren't that interested. Posts 1 It sounds like Glance AI will also be a standard content recommendation service on Samsung devices, similar to Google Discover Feed or MSN. The company said in a press release, "Glance AI also leverages trending content, local events, and social media moments to make recommendations fresh, relevant, and engaging. High-speed inferencing helps deliver options such as flash sales and trend-driven commerce, making every shopping experience unique and effortless." Samsung and Glance are pitching this as a useful upgrade for clothes shopping, but it's clearly just a new take on the same lockscreen advertisements found on Amazon Fire Tablets, Prime Exclusive unlocked phones, and some low-end phones and tablets. Samsung is no stranger to showing its own spam notifications and advertisements on its devices, and some models have carrier bloatware making the problem worse. Related The Super-Thin Galaxy S25 Edge Has Arrived Thinner than most current smartphones, but not to the point of killing battery life. Posts Lock screen ads are somewhat justified on cheaper devices, where they can help subsidize low hardware costs. That $30 Fire 7 probably costs more than $30 to build and ship to you, but Amazon makes up some of the cost with the ads. Most Samsung phones and tablets are not cheap (the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a whopping $1,300), but now the company is encouraging another ad platform on its devices with access to device lock screens. Hopefully, the Glance AI lockscreen advertisements remain an opt-in feature that won't be automatically enabled for anyone. The endless profit extraction out of devices that already cost too much money is getting tiring, to say the least. Source: Glance

Samsung rolling out lockscreen 'AI shopping experience' to Galaxy phones starting today

Starting today, Samsung is rolling out a new "AI shopping experience" on the lockscreen of select Galaxy phones, but there's some good news. Samsung has partnered with Glance, a company best known for building a lockscreen experience for Android that, among other things, shows ads. This new partnership is specifically around the Samsung Galaxy Store and will use generative AI to improve "commerce and content discovery" as well as showing "trending content, local events, and social media moments." Glance AI will start rolling out to Samsung devices starting today in the United States, with the experience - thankfully - being "fully opt-in." This implies it will be disabled by default, but it doesn't rule out a pop-up or other means of trying to get users to turn the feature on. Glance explains: Available as both an app and a lockscreen experience, Glance AI is a fully opt-in experience. It trains itself on a single selfie or an image from the image gallery to generate hyper-real images of consumers in outfits best suited for them. As users visualize themselves in various outfits, they can make real-time purchase decisions with just a tap. The recommendations and order fulfillment are driven by Glance AI's extensive partnership with more than 400 leading brands and retailers in the US and beyond. The app further allows users to place the feature directly on their lock screen for easy access and the ability to save each look as either their lockscreen wallpaper or download to share across their network. This new feature is apparently rolling out to Galaxy users in the US "starting today" in a staged rollout. It will be available to "100%" of users within 30 days. The rollout will start with the following Galaxy devices, but will expand to "the rest of device models" later on: There's no word on how this is rolling out, but it seems likely that it's tied to a Galaxy Store update. No images of what Glance AI looks like on Galaxy devices were provided, but a version of the Glance AI app - a "new custom app" is coming to Galaxy devices specifically - is already available in the Play Store with a focus on AI-powered clothing shopping that utilizes images of the user to find outfits available for purchase. The Glance website also shows what lockscreen integration looks like on other devices. We'll certainly be keeping an eye out for the update to see what Glance AI entails on Samsung Galaxy devices - get in touch if you see it go live on your phone.