Samsung Galaxy AI Strategy: Moving Beyond Apps to Autonomous Agentic Models

Exclusive: Samsung's Next Galaxy AI Challenge: Less Typing, More Agents

* Samsung launched new Galaxy Z series globally * The new foldables are Galaxy Z Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra, and Flip 8 * In India, the phones are now available Samsung is already working on the next era of Galaxy AI where users won't need to type requests into a chat box to get things done. Speaking at an AI roundtable, Jay Kim, Corporate EVP and Head of the Customer Experience Office at Samsung's MX Division, laid out how the company is moving from app-based interactions to a fully agentic AI model, and also talked about why India's linguistic diversity makes that shift especially complex. Kim's comments came in response to a question from Gadgets360, where we wanted to understand how Samsung is redesigning UX so interactions aren't "always typed in a box," and how the company plans to deliver contextual, cloud-reliant agentic experiences in a market as linguistically fragmented as India. Will Apps Go Away? Probably Not Kim began by addressing the future of the app itself. He stressed that apps aren't going anywhere, but how people use them is changing as AI takes over more of the legwork. "Will apps go away? Probably not. It will be there. It's so optimised for mobile devices and the industry. Many players are building their business around it, so there will be a balance between how app usage changes based on the evolution of AI. But definitely, as you have mentioned, the industry is moving into a more agentic area," he said. What is shifting, Kim said, is how much manual effort users need to put in. That's where "agentic" AI comes in. "What do you mean by agentic? It's more about letting the consumer spend less time on getting things done. You have tasks to do...earlier, you had to go to different apps back and forth to get things done," he explained further. Jay Kim, Corporate EVP, Head of Customer Experience Office, MX Division at Samsung Electronics during AI Roundtable From App-Stitching to MCP to Automation Kim then walked through the technical path Samsung has taken to get there. The company's first attempt was to manually connect AI to individual app functions, but that didn't hold up at scale. He said, "We started with app function, what's called stitching everything to the AI to get things done. But it wasn't scalable. Now you have MCP (Mobile Context Protocol), where it's more of an industry standard that you can have industrial players come and make a standard so that it actually helps the ecosystem." Because industry-wide standards take time to mature, Samsung also built its own interim solution, a feature that reads the phone's screen and completes tasks on the user's behalf. "We also launched what we call automation, where we understand the screen and then let the agents go through the process so that if I need to call an Uber, it will do it for you on your behalf. There are many different ways of how you manage agents. And agentic functions will evolve," he added. But he also made a candid admission that "It's still not perfect". Interestingly, rather than overselling the feature, Kim was direct about where automation currently stands following its debut on the Galaxy S26. "The first step that we did was automation at the Galaxy S26 launch. It was a very hard process. It's still not perfect, but we're taking our first step to get there," he further revealed. He also pointed to the pace problem baked into this kind of work by the time one piece of the AI stack is refined, newer technology, such as generative widgets, is already emerging, forcing Samsung to plan several steps simultaneously. Why Scale Demands Caution With Galaxy devices in daily use by more than a billion people, Kim said Samsung can't move on UX changes unilaterally, and its choices ripple across an entire ecosystem of partners. "So, we have more than a billion users using the product every single day today. We have to be very responsible. We have to make sure that industry moves all together in the right direction, not just us going in one direction," Kim added. Samsung's approach centres on open partnerships rather than isolated changes and working with the broader industry so that shifts in UX don't disrupt the ecosystem Samsung depends on. India: The Hardest Test Case Turning to the India-specific part of our question, Kim acknowledged that the country's linguistic diversity adds a layer of difficulty that global-first design doesn't account for. "India is a very complex market because you have many different languages. We'll do our best to make sure that we work with local teams because all R&D centres get a lot of feedback. So, we'll make sure that we put a lot of effort to address the local needs," Kim ensured. What's Next: Voice, Vision, and Wearables Kim closed by pointing beyond the phone. As agentic AI matures, he expects the interface itself to spread across devices, like smartwatches and smart glasses, with voice and vision becoming central to how people interact with AI day to day. "I think that UX, not just on the mobile, will actually split to wearables, whether it's a watch or glasses. So that will be another sort of angle that will spread the sort of usage from an UI perspective. I think voice will continue to evolve, because they will continue to have more voice interaction. So how do you have voice playing this sort of UX UI area will be another sort of angle that we're also looking at. And then vision is definitely another key. So, vision, voice, space, and everything that combined will come together, but we'll make sure that we'll work with the industry to take the right direction," he said.

Samsung says regional AI restrictions won't leave Galaxy users dependent on one model

Samsung is gearing up for potential shifts in AI model access across the globe. By employing a multi-model strategy and fostering regional partnerships for Galaxy AI, the company aims to maintain flexibility and reduce reliance on a single AI provider. Samsung says it is preparing for a scenario where access to a major AI model such as Google Gemini could change across markets, with the company increasingly relying on a multi-model strategy and regional partnerships to ensure its Galaxy AI experience is not dependent on a single provider. Speaking during a media roundtable, Jay Kim, Corporate EVP and Head of Customer Experience Office, MX Division, Samsung Electronics, said the company already works with multiple AI models, including its own models, open-weight models and frontier models. "As I said, we have our internal model. We have an open-weight model and we have a frontier model. We're actually working with all of our partners," Kim said. He added that Samsung's approach varies depending on the market, with the company also working with local partners in different regions. "We understand how the AI is impacting globally and how all the markets, the governments are addressing the issues. We are a global company and we manage all the global markets. So, it's not just that we're managing the models focused in the US," Kim said. The comments come as AI models are becoming an increasingly important part of the smartphone experience, while governments around the world are also paying closer attention to the development and deployment of foundation models. For Samsung, the challenge is not simply about ensuring that one particular AI model remains available. The company is looking at how different models can be integrated into its devices depending on the market, regulatory environment and the requirements of individual services. Kim said Samsung is working with multiple partners globally to balance the needs of different regions and is also engaging with governments on regulatory requirements. "It's an industry-wide issue," he said, adding that Samsung is focused more on understanding how AI technology evolves, how models are managed and how they eventually connect with consumers. Samsung is not relying only on GeminiSamsung has increasingly positioned Galaxy AI as a combination of its own software and services with AI models from external partners. Kim said the company is already using multiple models on its devices rather than depending exclusively on Gemini. "We're actually already using multiple models on our devices. It's not just Gemini," he said. According to Kim, Samsung chooses models depending on the service and entry point, using what it considers the most suitable model for a particular use case. "The models are evolving...one model comes and then the next model is better and then another one comes. It's more of a race," he said. This approach could give Samsung greater flexibility as the AI industry evolves. Instead of tying Galaxy AI to a single foundation model, Samsung can potentially switch between models or combine different models depending on the requirements of a service. Kim said the focus is ultimately on what the technology means for consumers rather than the model itself. Samsung wants AI to work without consumers thinking about AIThe company also said its approach to Galaxy AI is increasingly focused on making AI invisible to the consumer. Kim said Samsung does not necessarily want users to understand whether a particular function is powered by AI. Instead, the objective is to reduce the friction involved in completing everyday tasks. "We don't need our consumers to understand whether this benefit is coming from AI. They just need to understand that what they want to get done, we just make sure that they get it done," he said. Samsung has been moving in this direction with features such as Circle to Search, Photo Assist, Creative Studio, Cal Assist and Live Translate. The company said it measures these features differently depending on their intended use. While frequent usage is important for some features, others may be used less often but become important when consumers actually need them. India is becoming an important AI marketSamsung also highlighted the growing adoption of Galaxy AI in India. JB Park, CEO and President of Samsung Southwest Asia, said AI usage among Indian consumers is higher than the global average. According to Samsung, features such as Photo Assist, Creative Studio and Audio Eraser are used nearly twice as often in India as they are globally. The company is also working with IITs, startups and its R&D centres in India to improve AI usability and develop use cases suited to local consumers. Samsung's R&D centres in Noida and Bengaluru have also contributed to features aimed at Indian users. One example is Voice Focus, which uses AI to detect background noise during calls and automatically activate the relevant mode. Samsung has also added Hindi and Gujarati to Galaxy AI, with the company saying native speakers are using features such as Call Assist and Interpreter. Park said Samsung is continuing to work on expanding the linguistic reach of Galaxy AI, particularly given India's large number of languages and dialects. Hybrid AI will remain Samsung's approach The company does not see the future of AI as being entirely on-device or entirely in the cloud. Kim said Samsung's approach is hybrid, with certain services running locally on the device while more computationally intensive tasks that require deeper reasoning, global information or access to larger datasets can be handled through the cloud. He said Samsung does not intend to define a fixed percentage of AI processing that will always happen on-device. Instead, the company expects the balance to depend on the consumer, the task and the hardware available. The approach also becomes important as Samsung expands AI beyond premium smartphones into watches, glasses and other form factors. Kim said the smartphone will continue to act as a central computing hub, particularly for devices such as AI-powered glasses where processing power and battery capacity are constrained. The bigger challenge is keeping AI experiences consistent Samsung acknowledged that maintaining a seamless AI experience across phones, watches, glasses and other devices remains difficult. Kim said the company does not yet have the "right answer" for this challenge, but believes a hybrid model will be important. Galaxy AI is currently positioned for flagship devices, while Samsung is also developing what it calls Awesome Intelligence for its mass-market products. The company's objective is to gradually cascade capabilities from its flagship devices to more affordable segments while balancing on-device processing, cloud capabilities and hardware limitations. For Samsung, the AI race is therefore no longer simply about having the latest model. It is increasingly about how quickly and safely those models can be integrated into an ecosystem spanning different devices, markets and regulatory environments. And in the event that access to a model such as Gemini changes in a particular region, Samsung's bet appears to be that having multiple models, partners and its own AI capabilities will allow it to keep Galaxy AI running without making the consumer deal with the complexity behind it.

Samsung's Galaxy AI Roadmap Signals the End of App-Swapping

Samsung is preparing a big change for Galaxy AI. The company says the future of smartphones is not about opening one app after another. Instead, it wants AI agents to handle tasks across different apps on their own. The a version of Galaxy AI where typing queries and requests in a chatbox will make things happen. Corporate EVP and Head of the Customer Experience Office at Samsung's MX Division, Jay Kim, talked about this shift during a recent interview. He mentioned that Samsung is moving toward an era of redesigning the UX where interactions aren't 'always typed in a box.' It will deliver contextual, cloud-reliant agentic experiences. However, regarding apps going away completely or not, Kim stated, "Will apps go away? Probably not. It will be there. It's so optimized for mobile devices and the industry. Many players are building their business around it, so there will be a balance between how app usage changes based on the evolution of AI. But definitely, as you have mentioned, the industry is moving into a more agentic area." He further added, "We started with an app function, what's called stitching everything to the AI to get things done. But it wasn't scalable. Now you have MCP (Mobile Context Protocol), where it's more of an industry standard that you can have industrial players come and make a standard so that it actually helps the ecosystem."

Will Galaxy AI become a paid subscription? Samsung explains its thinking

AI on our smartphones is no longer just about editing photos, translating languages or summarising text. To put it into perspective, AI on phones can understand context, automate tasks across apps and even make recommendations before you ask. But delivering these smarter experiences isn't as simple as running everything on your smartphone. During an AI roundtable at Galaxy Unpacked in London last month, Samsung executives JB Park, President and CEO, Samsung South West Asia and Jay Kim, Corporate EVP and Head of Customer Experience Office at Samsung MX, explained why the company believes the future lies in a hybrid approach that combines on-device processing with cloud computing. They also offered fresh insight into whether Galaxy AI could eventually include paid features and why the company believes some AI experiences will always need more computing power than a phone alone can provide. Also read: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 early review: Lots to unpack! Why Samsung isn't choosing between on-device and cloud AI One of the biggest questions surrounding AI today is whether future smartphones can process everything locally or whether cloud computing will remain essential. According to Jay Kim, the answer isn't one or the other. Instead, Samsung is building what it calls a hybrid AI approach. The idea is simple. Tasks that benefit from speed, privacy and local processing should run directly on the device whenever possible. At the same time, requests that require deeper reasoning, access to global knowledge or more advanced computation are better handled in the cloud. Kim explained that there isn't a fixed ratio for how much AI should run locally versus remotely because every user interacts with AI differently. Some people may rely almost entirely on on-device features, while others regularly use cloud-powered experiences. Samsung's goal, he said, is to make that transition seamless rather than expecting users to think about where the processing happens. Partnerships remain central to Samsung's AI strategy Building this hybrid experience also means Samsung isn't developing AI in isolation. During the discussion, Kim highlighted the company's close collaboration with Google and Qualcomm, describing AI as something that spans every layer of the technology stack, from chipsets and operating systems to software and user experience. Rather than depending on a single AI model, Samsung said it already uses multiple models across different services, selecting whichever is best suited for a particular task. As AI models continue evolving, the company expects to keep adapting instead of committing itself to one provider or one technology. That flexibility, Samsung believes, will allow Galaxy devices to benefit from future AI advances without locking users into a single ecosystem. Also read: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 in Digit Test Labs: The Fold gets productivity, the Flip gets personality Why cloud AI may eventually cost money? As AI becomes more capable, another question naturally follows: who pays for the computing power? Kim acknowledged that AI services come with real operating costs, especially when cloud infrastructure is involved. He noted that consumer attitudes have also changed dramatically over the past few years, pointing out that people are now increasingly comfortable paying for AI services and that token-based computing has become part of the wider AI conversation. However, Samsung stopped well short of announcing a paid Galaxy AI subscription. Instead, Kim reiterated that Samsung's core AI services will continue to be provided without charge. At the same time, the company is evaluating how to make future services sustainable and scalable while continuing to deliver what it considers the best AI experience for consumers. In other words, Samsung isn't ruling out premium AI experiences in the future, but neither is it signalling that today's core Galaxy AI features are about to move behind a paywall. What this means for Galaxy users? Samsung's message is very clear: the company believes users shouldn't have to think about whether a feature is powered by on-device processing or cloud computing. Instead, the focus is on delivering the right experience while balancing privacy, performance and cost. Also read: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra display tested: The most colour accurate foldable screen For Galaxy users, that likely means future smartphones will continue relying on a mix of local intelligence for everyday tasks and cloud processing for more demanding AI capabilities. It also suggests that while Samsung sees value in keeping its core AI experience free, more advanced cloud-powered services could eventually become part of a broader premium offering if they prove sustainable to deliver. For now, Samsung's vision is clear: AI shouldn't be defined by where it runs, but by how naturally it helps people get things done.