Samsung has announced that it has expanded its partnership with Google to bring Gemini on Google Cloud to Samsung’s upcoming home AI robot, Ballie. Yongjae Kim, Executive Vice President of the Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics, said that this would redefine the role of AI in the home now that people can have a natural conversation with a robot.
Ballie offers some of the same features as your smart speaker, such as adjusting lighting, personalizing reminders, and setting schedules, but it can also do a bunch of other stuff thanks to its mobility and multimodal functionality. Other tasks you can perform with Ballie include greeting guests at the door, having it assess your clothing choices, and receiving personalized health and wellbeing advice with grounding in Google Search.
These two tech giants previously integrated Gemini on Google Cloud with the Galaxy S24 series. This collaboration unlocked Gemini-powered summarization features in Samsung-native apps such as Notes, Voice Recorder, and Keyboard. In Samsung’s Gallery application, Generative Edit was added, powered by Imagen 2, which was the latest model at the time.
“With Gemini on Google Cloud, Samsung is demonstrating how to deploy generative AI at scale, integrating it directly into the heart of their popular products,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “This expanded partnership with Samsung underscores our commitment to delivering reliable, enterprise-grade AI that drives lasting value for our customers – and their customers.”
Samsung is planning to launch Ballie in the United States and South Korea sometime this summer. It’s a very interesting product because it’s a new product category that could appeal to users, just like smart home devices. Robots like R2D2 have long been present in sci-fi, so customers could probably get excited about Ballie more easily than, say, virtual reality headsets, which are still quite niche.
The Korean phone maker has not stated how much Ballie will cost, but it’s not expected to be very cheap. A PCMag report from January said that Ballie might be available via a subscription to help customers spread the high cost of the device out over time. If you are interested, you can learn more about Ballie on Samsung’s website and register your interest in the device so that you can put in a pre-order when available.
Source: Samsung
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