TM Roh, CEO and President of Samsung, has just published a post — surprising because it’s unusual for him to do so. What he says plays into what we can expect to see from the brand when it holds its Galaxy Unpacked event on July 22 ( read this for more details ). Here’s what he said, and what it means.

In an editorial on news.samsung.com titled, “AI Doesn’t Need to Outthink You. It Needs to Understand You,” he writes that “History repeats a pattern,” explaining how electricity, the internet and the phone changed society not at their invention but when they reached daily lives. AI will be the same, he says.

Entering The Agentic Era Of AI

Agentic AI is coming, we know, and Samsung is embracing it.

What’s interesting is that Samsung has been promoting AI for some time now, putting it into its phones as Galaxy AI a couple of years ago and it’s now, Roh says, entering “an agentic age.”

To succeed, it needs to know the user, and the better it knows them, the better it can work. I’d agree with that.

Samsung Teases Ultra-Wide Foldables And Smart Glasses

Exactly what’s coming and when may not yet be clear, but the CEO has dropped several hints.

Roh also let slip a big clue that a new-format folding phone — which is the category Galaxy Unpacked will focus on later this month — is coming.

“The phone is closest to us, with us daily. The tablet is where we create and learn. The watch reads signals like sleep and heart rate. The TV and connected home appliances add context from where we live,” he said. And here’s the clincher: “New form factors, from foldables to intelligent eyewear, expand where AI meets us.” We know Samsung is working on smart glasses in conjunction with Google, and these were unveiled at Google I/O.

While it’s not clear that these smart specs will be at Unpacked in London (though we can hope), that new form factor for the folding phone is a shoo-in.

Building A Pervasive AI Smart Home Ecosystem

Open is good, Samsung has been saying for years.

And AI is going to be everywhere, it seems. “AI at its best works quietly in the background, bringing these moments into a cohesive experience. That is why we have spent years building an ecosystem not just to reach, but to connect more moments,” Roh said.

He also commented on Samsung’s commitment to open systems. This is a regular point of view from Samsung and may be a quiet dig at Apple’s closed ecosystem. It’s true, though, that the company’s smart home platform, SmartThings, is designed to work with partners. “Openness lets the best ideas reach people faster,” Roh said.

The Eight-Generation Edge Over Apple's Foldable iPhone

If you’re up to your eighth model of folding phone, you’ll have learned a lot along the way, it seems.

Back to folding phones: Roh comments that “This is what makes foldables special: they fold into your hand or open a larger stage. On this journey, Samsung has continued to make foldables thinner, lighter, stronger and more immersive,” he insisted.

To be fair to Roh, when Apple launches its first foldable this fall as it’s expected to do, Samsung will be on its eighth generation of the form factor.