Many of America’s defining innovations have been things you could point to: the telephone, television, personal computer, and smartphone. Each expanded what people could do by putting a powerful new capability in their hands.
Artificial intelligence is following a different pattern. It is appearing across the technology people already use every day—from the phone in your pocket and the watch on your wrist, to the television on your wall and the appliances in your home.
Just as the internet and mobile connectivity added a layer of intelligence by linking those devices together, artificial intelligence is evolving in a similar way. It is not just a new tool, but a force that makes the entire technological landscape work intelligently together. The opportunity ahead is to make the technology around us more responsive, connected, and useful as a whole.
FROM SMART PRODUCTS TO SMART SYSTEMS
A typical morning already involves several connected technologies. You might check a wearable to see how you slept, use a calendar app to organize your day, and rely on connected devices to adjust the temperature or notify you that a package has arrived.
Most of these interactions remain separate. People move between devices, applications, and services, re-entering information and managing settings that rarely travel with them.
AI can help bridge those gaps by bringing relevant information into view at the right moment, reducing the small tasks and decisions that consume attention throughout the day.
We’re already seeing the beginnings of this shift across Samsung’s connected ecosystem, as people use devices and services together to manage everything from energy and schedules to entertainment. The next challenge is making those experiences work together in ways that reduce friction rather than create more of it.
Health makes the opportunity especially clear. Wellness tools can assist people in understanding patterns in daily life, while healthcare providers hold the clinical information needed to guide diagnosis and treatment. We need to bridge the gap between everyday wellness and clinical care by connecting the pieces—technology, data, and people—for true holistic care.
At Samsung, we already see this shift taking shape in health. Wearables like smart watches can already help detect early health signals, including irregular rhythms suggestive of atrial fibrillation, irregular ECG readings, or sleep apnea. But people don’t experience their health and technology in categories. They experience it as a part of everyday life. We’re working to connect everyday wellness insights with care teams, to create a more complete picture of a person’s health. It’s one example of a much bigger opportunity: The future of AI must be designed around real life, not individual devices.
The same principle can apply across other industries, where connected intelligence can simplify energy use, improve accessibility, strengthen home safety, and make household coordination less burdensome. The real value comes from technology working across an environment, rather than asking people to manage each piece independently.
A HIGHER BAR FOR TRUST
Greater coordination requires greater care.
As intelligence becomes part of more areas of our lives, technology may use additional context about our routines and preferences to better understand our needs. People deserve to know what information a system uses, why it acts, and how to change or stop it.
A seamless experience should never come at the expense of meaningful control.
The next generation of connected technology must be transparent and secure. It should be designed around user choice. Consent should be specific and reversible. Preferences should be easy to understand and manage. Systems should explain their actions clearly enough that assistance feels useful rather than intrusive.
Health makes those principles especially important. Connected care can assist people in interpreting the information gathered by their devices and, when appropriate, share useful insights with professionals who can help them act. People must remain in control of what they want to share, as well as when it moves between services. They need to be able to change those choices.
Interoperability is equally important. No household, workplace, or healthcare system runs entirely on one company’s technology. Progress will require devices and services to work across boundaries. Otherwise, connected ecosystems risk creating a new generation of digital walls.
This is a defining test for the AI industry. Progress must be measured by how much people value these systems in their everyday lives. The products and companies that succeed will offer technology that is useful, understandable, and worthy of people’s trust.
The future will likely include technology that works together, respects individual choice, and gives people more time to focus on their work, relationships, and priorities. The next great breakthrough may be an ecosystem intelligent enough to work with many devices together, and trustworthy enough to do so on people’s terms.
Yoonie Joung is president and CEO of Samsung Electronics North America.