Samsung Electronics, LG Uplus to jointly develop ixi-O AI smartphone

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. has joined forces with mobile carrier LG Uplus Corp. to unveil an AI smartphone embedded with a highly advanced digital assistant as early as next year.

According to industry sources on Thursday, the two companies agreed to embark on a joint AI smartphone project to launch a “real AI phone” that goes beyond simply integrating AI assistant services into a smartphone.

In a rare partnership between a smartphone maker and a mobile carrier, the two companies will look for ways to embed LG’s AI capabilities into Samsung’s Galaxy series of smartphones from the phone development stage.

Their collaboration will focus on combining LG Uplus's AI call assistant ixi-O with Samsung’s AI service Galaxy AI.

The new AI smartphone, tentatively named Galaxy ixi-O phone, will target LG Uplus users, but such AI services will eventually be available for other mobile carriers, sources said.

“We expect AI services provided by ixi-O to be revolutionary when integrated into Samsung's Galaxy on-device AI phones,” said one of the people.

LG’S VISION TO BECOME AN AI FIRM

Samsung and LG‘s new AI smartphone will likely come out next year, starting with Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S25 series, due in the first half, according to the sources.

LG Uplus, the smallest of Korea’s three mobile carriers, unveiled ixi-O, an on-device AI call agent, earlier this month, as part of its goal to transform into an AI company.

A personal AI agent, ixi-O features services such as AI call answering, detecting voice phishing in real-time, recording and summarizing phone calls and converting voice conversation into text – all within an on-device environment.

LG Uplus Chief Executive Hwang Hyeon-sik said the company plans to invest up to 3 trillion won ($2.1 billion) in AI and foster related businesses through cooperation with Big Tech companies such as Google Inc. and Amazon Web Services.

The ixi-O is currently available on Apple Inc.’s iPhone 14 series.

LG Uplus plans to unveil its AI business portfolio and vision, centered around call AI services, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next February.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.