AI will be no different.

Where AI Meets People

AI is getting smarter faster, and this will continue. But to change how people live, it must answer: where, how and into whose hands does this intelligence reach? This will define AI’s next chapter.

AI no longer merely answers. It is entering an agentic age, taking action on our behalf while the person carries the final decision. But to act for someone, it must first know them.

That is why it matters where AI meets people. The entry points are where AI understands a person and builds trust. The best AI experiences will come from the devices that know the user best.

This is what Samsung has spent years building. 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. And new form factors, from foldables to intelligent eyewear, expand where AI meets us. Together, a fuller picture of a person’s needs forms.

These entry points are powerful together. Signals from across devices become timely assistance: sleep tracked by your watch shapes tomorrow’s schedule, with information always available. 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.

Built on Openness and Trust

Samsung does not do this alone. The platforms that changed the world were the most open. The web was. So were mobile operating systems. With SmartThings, we brought devices, services and partners into one connected experience, shaping industry open standards. Openness lets the best ideas reach people faster. And we don’t simply layer intelligence on top, but design how AI works at the center so it serves each person in context.

But openness alone is not the goal. The harder task is turning intelligence into something personal and trustworthy. The best intelligence in the world should reach people through their everyday devices. But what makes it personal is understanding the user and keeping that understanding safe. That is our responsibility.

As AI becomes more personal and agentic, trust becomes the foundation. People need to know what AI is doing for them and remain in control.

This is why trust isn’t added at the end. Samsung Knox protects each Galaxy device and now the connections between them. As intelligence moves across devices, protecting what flows between them is crucial. The most personal data stays on the device so people can understand how AI is working, staying in control.

The Next Chapter of Galaxy

That same understanding shapes the devices we build. The more personal and capable AI becomes, the more form matters. As AI helps us with more at once, a screen that flexes and folds expands what is possible. This is what makes foldables special: they fold into your hand, opening a larger stage. On this journey, Samsung has continued to make foldables thinner, lighter, stronger and more immersive.

AI is also essential in health. How we sleep, recover and look after ourselves—daily choices add up. A device close to us, like a watch, tracks these signals ensuring a better day.

The upcoming Galaxy Unpacked is where we will show what’s next in bringing all this together: more personal, natural AI experiences on a foundation more partners can build on. The question that opens the next era is not who has the smartest AI, but who understands people best, and turns that understanding into experiences they can trust.

We intend to take this path with openness and responsibility, beginning with the device already in your hand. We open this next chapter together at Galaxy Unpacked.

Why APV

Codecs may be unfamiliar to many consumers, but they act as invisible engines shaping the user experience. Think of a suitcase — how you pack it determines how much it holds and how easily you can find what you need. Likewise, an efficient codec enables a user to store more high-quality video while improving playback and editing.

Video falls into two categories — casual video, everyday clips we capture and share, and professional video for cinema-grade editing. While casual codecs prioritize compression efficiency, professional codecs must preserve image quality and reproduce colors with precision. Just as overpacking a suitcase can damage or distort its contents, professional video requires a robust codec that preserves every detail.

Conventional compression makes it difficult to fully enable mobile post-production — including color grading, where creators apply precise tones to match their artistic vision, and visual effects (VFX). APV was designed to support the entire workflow from capture to final edit while preserving detail even after multiple rounds of recompression.

Reducing Complexity Without Compromise

The biggest technical challenge was reducing complexity. Conventional professional codecs focus on image quality, making them computationally demanding and limiting use to high-end hardware. The goal was to achieve a low-complexity design that mobile processors could handle in real time without compromising quality.

To address this, Samsung introduced lightweight entropy coding¹ to reduce computational load and frame tiling² that enables parallel encoding and decoding across multiple cores. As a result, APV supports real-time processing of up to 8K video on mobile phones while maintaining image quality with minimal loss, even after multiple edits.

Building an Open Ecosystem for All

The value of technology lies in how widely it is used. Samsung chose to build an open ecosystem where anyone can adopt and advance the technology. It’s like sharing a great recipe — leading to even better results.

In February 2026, Samsung published APV through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as RFC 9924, establishing it as a de facto global standard. The company also released the full source code on GitHub under the name “OpenAPV,” enabling developers worldwide to participate and contribute.

This openness is driving ecosystem growth and accelerating adoption. The APV codec is supported in Android 16, while the open-source tool FFmpeg and post-production software DaVinci Resolve have also added support.

Collaborating Across Global Teams

This progress was driven by Samsung’s global research collaboration. After Samsung Research (SR) led early development, teams across Samsung Research America (SRA), Samsung R&D Institute India-Bangalore (SRI-B), Samsung R&D Institute Poland (SRPOL) and Samsung R&D Institute Japan (SRJ) worked closely together. Their efforts led to a key milestone in October 2023, when APV was unveiled at the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC). In August 2024, Samsung joined the Academy Software Foundation (ASWF) to support the open-source video ecosystem.

To bring the technology to mobile phones, the Mobile eXperience (MX) Business spearheaded product integration. Close collaboration between MX and SR optimized performance for mobile. In February 2026, Samsung equipped Galaxy S26 Ultra with APV — the first Android phone to support the codec.

Expanding Creative Possibilities for All

Our goal is clear. We aim to make professional-grade video production accessible to everyone through APV. Technology delivers its greatest value when it is open, and APV will shape a more creative future for video content.

1. A technique that reduces computational complexity, enabling the mobile phone’s application processor to operate more efficiently ︎
2. A method that divides a large video frame into smaller segments, allowing them to be processed simultaneously ︎