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Samsung is the worlds leading consumer electronics company, and its technological innovations (like folding phones with deeply integrated AI) are unmatched. But its hard to be the biggest or best at everything, and the companys market share has eroded for the first time in a decade across some of its biggest categories: smartphones, televisions, displays, DRAM (computer chips), and car displays. The company is not on fireits revenue grew 11% in 2024 to reach nearly $220 billion. But its identity remains monolithic, while it faces headwinds in almost every direction, literally, from Apple in America to a slew of electronics companies in China. Furthermore, it must contend with a simple truth facing everyone in this industry: The next five years of AI development could very well shape our next 50. Its why Mauro Porcini has such an overwhelming task in front of him. After leaving PepsiCo earlier this year, hes become Samsungs first chief design officer and its first foreign design lead. His hiring signals an intentional shift in Samsungs strategy to look beyond Koreas own rich design culture and modernize the global brand for the era ahead. For his first interview in the role, Porcini sat down for an exclusive conversation with Fast Company to outline his vision after his first three months in Seoul. Anyone who has followed Porcinis career will be unsurprised by his liberal references to fuzzy feelings. He insists that its Samsungs role to address Maslows hierarchy of needs in each of us, while positioning design as an act of love and literally making sure that we put people at the center of everything. But within this greater viewpoint, Porcini revealed a lot about how Samsungs 1,500 designers are approaching the future of product, AI, and brandincluding a new approach to AI that will start with AI-infused glasses and follow you right into your home. Here were my four biggest takeaways from our conversation. Samsung needs to express a bolder POV With few exceptions, both Samsungs products and brand are somehow ubiquitous and anonymous at the same time. Despite its market share, Samsung rarely feels iconic. From a design standpoint, what is the right tonality? What is the right visual code? Porcini muses aloud. How can we have a point of view on the world that is totally original, that is unique to Samsung? He doesnt immediately answer his own question, but provides a few clues to where hed like to lead Samsung next. When it comes to the brand and what it means to peoplewhat Porcini academically calls the semiotic meaning of Samsunghe wants to reposition what adopting a Samsung product says about you. But what do people even think Samsung means as a brand? I suggest that when I see someone with a Galaxy phone, I tend to think that person simply refuses to use an iPhone. What you just shared can be interpreted in a different way, Porcini counters. That [idea] is, I don’t want to fit in. That is all about self-expression, and this is one of the pillars I want to invest in: this idea that Samsung is all about creative expression. Within this pillar, Porcini wants to position the company as a creative force thats not afraid to fail. It’s really about saying, You know what? This is how we see things, he says. And by the way, this means that sometimes you will get it right, sometimes you wont. But I think people will appreciate the courage of having a point of view, the courage of experimenting. The Frame TV [Photo: Samsung] This point of view needs to be articulated by genre-busting products as well. Porcini points to Samsung’s Frame TVs (designed by Yves Béhar), which disguise a television as a work of art, as a bright spot in the companys product portfolio for their originality. The Frame TV is the first attempt in recent history in our industry to give the TV a different meaning, even when you don’t use it, he says. What are the new archetypes of TV, of phones, of washing machines, of refrigerators, that are relevant to people today? Samsung is looking at two very specific flavors of AI Artificial intelligence is confusing because, while it can seemingly do anything, its challenging to even make it do something. AI is a word that is being so abused. When we talk about AI, were talking about all kinds of [different] things, Porcini says, arguing that its time to simplify how we consider the technology, at least within Samsung. To that end, the company is pursuing two specific approaches to AI. The first approach is AI to control and enhance the capabilities of a product. This is often the AI that many of us know simply as the invisible algorithm, or software powering a device. He points to Samsungs new washing machines as exhibiting this approach; they allow you to simply toss in your clothes while they deduce the right cycle to clean them. That’s an example of AI used in a meaningful way, he argues. Its not about receiving calls with a washing machine. The second is the AI companion. This is a personality that you can ask questions of and communicate with directly. Porcini sees the companion as an essential way to pull insights from Samsung AI, but perhaps not via every single Samsung product. The washing machine is probably not going to be one of these devices tat are going to have the AI companion in it where were going to talk about all our problems in life, he laughs, before noting a real issue may be less that your washing machine couldnt be your friend than it tends to be tucked away in a small room where its tricky to talk to. But what about a TV or a refrigerator, set in more social spaces like a living room or kitchen? Possibly, he says. Naturally, there will be some fuzziness to Porcini’s AI strategy across so many products. But simply put, Samsung appears to be treating AI as automation or conversation. Samsungs wearable glasses will be the companys first big piece of AI hardware Porcini confirms that the first AI wearable out of Samsung will be a pair of AI glasses that capture video and audio constantly, meaning Samsung is pursuing a similar technological path to Meta, Google, and Snap as the tech world chases the fourth great interface. [Glasses] are already part of how we interact, he says, pulling his own glasses back to his face. And so this is an obvious bet. It’s very complex from a technological standpoint . . . but something that makes a lot of sense. And that’s why we are betting on that right now. For our AI companion to have insight into our lives, he says it needs to see and hear what we do. That means Samsung has to think beyond a phone that lives in your pocket. But beyond that requirement, hes not beholden to a form factor long term. He admits hes unsure well see industry consolidation quickly as to the right form factor of AI hardware, and whether we might carry several devices instead of one. There will be multiple bets [from Samsung] as what we need to achieve is a seamless integration with our body and a presence that is almost invisible, Porcini says. I think if we [can develop] one device that people are going to use in a totally seamless, natural, organic way, then there will be [industry] consolidation. If instead every device feels like a trade-off, then there will be a system of different forms and shapes that serve the needs of different people. Clockwise from right: the Galaxy Watch8 (white band), Galaxy Watch Ultra, and Galaxy Watch8 Classic [Photo: Samsung] Wearables are just one part of Samsungs AI strategy Porcini argues that we will need AI wearables for our commutes, and when were out and about. But beyond that? The question is, when you arrive home, do you still want to wear this stuff? Or is the ideal vision . . . you want just the invisible [AI] friend there with you? he asks. Samsung is betting on the latter, and Porcini points out that its TVs, fridges, dishwashers, and other appliances can all be fit with sensors that could take over the job of monitoring your life. What if, when you arrive home, you can put this wearable device somewhere, and then the home becomes intelligent? he muses. It sees what you see, hears what you hear. You have a galaxy, no pun intended, of different objects inside the home that essentially are there being your companion and learning about you, and with the perfect privacy of a system that is not in the cloud. Caveats abound, of course. Porcini quickly notes that Samsung doesnt have all its AI running locally, and AI training could involve different servers. But as a strategy, turning every Samsung appliance into an AI-adjacent device gives the company an advantage over competitors with a narrower list of products. And if Samsung could become a true moat of data privacy in the age of AI, that could become a considerable competitive advantage. Life infused with Samsung AI might look a little something like this: A Samsung smartwatch monitors your antioxidant levels. The Samsung Health app notes you need to eat more vegetables to boost those levels. Its refrigerator uses cameras to spot the fruits and veggies for you to eat before they expire. Your smart glasses might track the actual veggies as you eat them. The TV could present a workout optimized to help rebalance your antioxidant levels. Much of this capability exists in the right collection of Samsung products today. Other bits might be realized through AI and additional sensors. But in any case, its a demonstration of the sorts of UX that Samsungs collection of domestic devices could enable that an Apple would be challenged to realize without rethinking its entire business. The beauty of the model that we have today, Porcini says, is that those products are already there.
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Intangible is the first tool that could make generative AI video truly usable. The new web appcreated by Pixar, Apple, Google, and Unity alumniis trying to change the user experience of generative AI video by letting you fully control your video using a 3D interface, thus solving the lack of control of current text prompts. Think about it as a 3D animation program that lets you control the stage, characters, and camera in your film, with a generative AI rendering engine that will turn those elements into reality. Intangible’s current version feels half-baked, and it will not produce The Godfather yet, but its definitely a step in the right direction for the generative AI video user experience.“To deliver professional-grade results in creative industries like film, advertising, events, and games, the directors, producers, and every creative on the team needs control over set design, shot composition, art direction, pacing, cameras, and more to deliver on the creative vision,” Intangible chief product officer Charles Migos tells me over email. “Current AI models are reliant on extensive prompting, and language alone isn’t enough to convey creative intent. By providing generative AI models with spatial intelligence, Intangible allows creatives to get closer to professional-grade results with less prompting, more feel, and more control.”Migos is right that we need a better way to control the imagination of generative AI video engines. While generative AI video is getting to the point at which it is truly indistinguishable from reality, creating it is like rolling the dice. There’s still a chasm between the vision in your mind and what comes out of Google’s Veo 3 or Kling. This makes it pretty much unusable for everything but memes, skits, storyboards, and the occasional ad stunt.While some AI models let you set camera paths or define some characters and objects using images, the prompts that create the videos are inherently limited by the interpretable nature of language. Every person and AI visualizes any given text differently. Thats the beauty of reading a book, but it’s a limitation when it comes to creating what you have in mind. That’s why Alfred Hitchcock meticulously planned his films using storyboards, so that everyone in the production could truly visualize the intangible nature of his imagination to faithfully capture Cary Grant’s desperation as a biplane tried to kill him in North by Northwest.[Image: Intangible]Spatial intelligenceMigos and CEO Bharat Vasan believe that to truly unleash the power of generative AI for video production, we must add spatial intelligence to the interface. Computer vision expert Fei-Fei Li, known as the godmother of artificial intelligence, has defined spatial intelligence as the ability, both in humans and artificial intelligence systems, to perceive, interpret, reason about, and interact with the three-dimensional world. This involves not just recognizing objects, but understanding their positions, relationships, and functions within a physical space, and being able to act upon that understanding.“By building in interactive 3D from the outset, Intangible’s world model gives generative AI image and video generation models the ability to be more precise, without extensive prompting,” Vasan says. This precision is what current text-to-video tools fundamentally lack. When you describe a scene in words, you’re forcing the AI to interpret spatial relationships through languagean inherently imprecise translation that often results in the AI changing things and adding objects or actions that you didnt have in mind. Intangible grounds generative AI models in structured 3D scenes with real camera control and spatial logic, which Vasan says “provides best-in-class coherence in the results, which we further improve with object descriptions, reference imagery, and fine-tuning models [LoRAs, or low-rank adaptations]. The goal is to address one of the biggest complaints about current AI video tools: the lack of coherence and continuity between frames.”[Image: Intangible]How it worksThe platform allows users to build custom 3D scenes using drag-and-drop objects, set up cameras, and control them. The interface is pretty simple: You can start from a preset scene or with a blank world. Theres a general viewport that shows you the scene, with a ground ready for you to start dropping buildings, characters, and other objects from a library of more than 5,000 assets.At the bottom of the interface, a toolbox gives you access to all you need. To the left, icons allow you to open a scene panel in which you can add and reorder all the shots that will form your final video. In the center, a central prompt allows you to add new objects using text. To its left, there are three icons to add objects to the scene. The first one allows you to display a palette to pick an object from the library of premade assets. Then there is an icon to add primitiveslike spheres, cubes, or pyramidsto create your own basic objects. Finally, a third button lets you add what the company calls “interactables”: cameras, characters, waypoints to tell the camera where to move, and “populators,” which will fill your scene with variations of the same objects, like bushes or shrubs in a forest.Working in this interface is pretty straightforward. Objects in the scene can be moved around with standard 3D handles, with arrows to move, cubes to scale, and arches to rotate the objects in all three axes. The interfaceat least using Chrome in my Macbook Air 15 with M2 chipwas sluggish but usable, with some serious pauses at the beginning of the session, which got better later on.To the right of the prompt field, there are two icons that switch between edit and visualization modes. The latter opens a side panel on the right of the screen that contains all you need to tell the generative AI how to render your scene: how the objects look, how they interact with each other, what the lighting and the atmosphere look like, and anything else you want to define. There are also options to set up the time of the day or the final look of your video, which includes modes like photorealism, 3D cartoon, or film noir. Once you write your prompt, click the “generate” button . . . and thats it.The idea is good. I tried it (here, its free for now), and it works-ish. I started from one of the templates, a Roman urban scene. I quickly added an elephant, positioned and scaled it up with the object handles, and then I clicked on the visualization icon to set the prompt (a premade one was already there), and clicked on generate.The results were just okay. Intangible does what the company claims, but it still makes mistakes. You can see it in the way it rendered this scene with a giant elephant in a Roman street. The Colosseum is gone, replaced by a mountain and some pointy things I cant identify. There are rendering mistakes as well, and the people are wearing the wrong clothesthat is, unless I missed the history class in which they teach that Romans wore jeans and Daisy Dukes.Once you have your shot, you can turn it into a video. This is where things get disappointing. I thought Intangible would use its own generative AI engine to directly interpret the 3D scene itselfas Nvidia demonstrated six years agoand turn it into a final photorealistic video using the objects to guide the final rendering. In reality, it feeds your still image to the latest version of Klinga popular, pretty realistic rendering engine from China that can turn any image into a living video, following a prompt. If you are a 3D artist, you will be better off combining your current workflow using Kling or any other image-to-video generative AI (as some people are already doing).If you are starting from scratch with 3D software, Intangible can work for you even if it is nowhere near perfect. The software will get better: In the next three years, we expect tools like Intangible will be able to cover all aspects of preproduction and digital production for existing forms of media, Migos and Vasan tell me. They also believe that AI tools bring an opportunity to expand visual storytelling as an art form, creating new categories that human creativity thrives in, as linear, interactive, and immersive media blend. . . . We expect tools like Intangible to be both simple and powerful enough that it empowers a new generation of creatives, not just those who are technical or prompting experts.For now, despite the glitches, Intangibles premise is the right one: People need a better way to control AI video because text is not a good interface when you are trying to visualize an idea. Spatial intelligence may be the key to solving it. At the very least, this new software shows that, when it comes to artificial intelligence, we still need to work on a better, more natural, and precise user experience.
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E-Commerce
After years of research, learning, and development, Ikea says it’s ready to release a line of products it hopes will change the smart home game. The Swedish furniture manufacturer and retailer announced Wednesday that it will release 20 smart home products in January 2026 that it calls its “biggest step” yet to make smart home technology open, simple, and affordable. Ikea has released smart light bulbs and systems before, and previously partnered with Sonos for speakers, but this relaunched smart home line was designed to be universal. [Photo: Ikea] “Our goal is to make the smart home easy to use, easy to understand, and within reach for the many,” Ikea of Sweden’s range manager David Granath said in a statement. The heart of Ikea’s smart home system will be Dirigera, a hub that’s compatible with the smart home technical standard Matter. That means Ikea’s line will work with smart home devices across different brands. It’s a system built for versatility and designed specifically to lower the threshold for consumers to get started on their own smart home systems. [Photo: Ikea] Ikea didn’t reveal much about the products other than to say the goal was not to add technology for technology’s own sake. Instead, Ikea wants to build a smarter smart home that’s supportive and adaptable. Forthcoming products will replace the functions of existing products, Granath confirmed to The Verge, and a pair of Bluetooth speakers being released ahead of the wider January launch act as a preview. Nattbad, coming out this month, was designed to look like a vintage speaker in yellow, pink, or black, while Blomprakt, a table speaker-lamp that will come in beige, black, and blue, will be released in October. Both are minimal but attractive and signal Ikea’s general direction for home tech design. [Photo: Ikea] “We understand how people want to furnish with sound in a way that adds atmosphere and feels natural in the home,” Granath says. “Our aim is to make sound accessible, functional, and enjoyable without adding complexity.” This is smart home tech made easy. And if Ikea can deliver for consumers like it thinks it can, more connected homes could soon be coming to the massesand the retailer will mark its territory in the smart home space.
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E-Commerce
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