[Galaxy Unpacked July 2026] Samsung and Partners Envision a Connected Care Future — From First Signal to Lasting Change

At Galaxy Unpacked July 2026 in London, Samsung Electronics set out its vision for the next chapter of digital health — a future where care moves from reactive treatment toward preventive, personalized and connected experiences, supported by trusted health innovation and partnerships across the healthcare ecosystem.

To explore that vision, Samsung hosted a Health Forum panel, “Rewriting the Rules of Preventive Health.” Moderated by Dr. Hon Pak, Senior Vice President and Head of the Digital Health Team, Mobile eXperience (MX) Business at Samsung Electronics, the session brought together leaders across nutrition, fitness, clinical research and AI to examine how technology can close the gap between knowing and doing in everyday health.

▲ (From left) Otávio Penatti, Kevin Duffy, Moderator Dr. Hon Pak. Rohit Ail and Kartik Poria

The Paradox — and the “Missing Miles” of Health

Opening the discussion, Dr. Pak described a paradox at the heart of modern health: innovation and technology today has been transformational and accelerating, yet chronic disease continues to rise around the world.

“We live in the most measured era in human history — billions of people track their sleep, their stress, their heart rate every single day. And yet chronic disease keeps rising. More data, it turns out, hasn’t resulted in better health.”

He framed the disconnect as two “missing miles.” The first mile is detection and monitoring: much of what shapes our health happens outside the clinic and until recently, continuous monitoring was neither available nor connected to the physician. The last mile is action: even after a diagnosis and a care plan, it is the individual who has to act day after day — and life is busy and change is hard.

▲ Dr. Hon Pak

Samsung, Dr. Pak argued, is uniquely positioned to close both gaps. Samsung, Dr. Pak argued, is uniquely positioned to close both gaps. With technology that stays with people throughout their daily lives — across wearables, mobile phones and a connected ecosystem — Samsung can understand not just raw biometric numbers, but the context behind them.

“We don’t just see a number — we see what’s around it: whether this is a moment you’re ready to change something or a moment you need a bit of support. Being there, at the point where personal decisions actually get made, is hard for a hospital or any other company to measure or act upon.”

But no single company can do this alone. That, he said, is why Samsung is building Connected Care together with partners — closing the first and last mile to scale prevention, with AI as the enabler across both. He introduced the three focus areas that would structure the conversation: everyday behavior, clinical credibility and privacy and advanced AI and research.

Everyday Behavior: Closing the Last Mile at the Dinner Table and the Gym

Diet and exercise are two of the biggest levers on long-term health — and two of the most within our control. They are also, Dr. Pak noted, where the gap between knowing and doing is widest.

Kartik Poria, Head of Product at Samsung Food, located that gap in a moment everyone recognizes.

“It’s Tuesday, six o’clock. You’re tired, you’re staring into the fridge and everything you know about eating well loses to whatever’s quickest. That moment is what we’re going after — because what you eat, day after day, is one of the biggest levers we have on preventing chronic disease.”

He described how Samsung Health and Samsung Food are coming together to tackle two halves of the same problem: Samsung Health surfaces what is happening beneath the surface — indicators such as meal logs, BMI, the Antioxidant Index and the AGEs Index — while Samsung Food’s global recipe library facilitates meal planning and its food intelligence reflect how people actually like to eat. Sitting on top is a nutrition experience grounded in behavior change science rather than tracking alone — learning a person’s habits and working with them so the healthier pattern becomes the easier one.

“We’re not adding another thing to manage — we’re making the healthy choice the easy one, for the night you’ve got the energy to cook and the night you don’t.”

▲ Kartik Poria from Samsung Food

Turning to movement, Kevin Duffy, CEO of iFIT, described exercise as foundational to both physical and mental wellbeing and explained how iFIT’s expert-led programs are becoming more accessible through Samsung Health.

“Exercise is vital for both physical and mental wellbeing — cardiovascular health, strength, mobility, sleep quality, stress management.”

Through Samsung Health, users can discover and subscribe to iFIT’s premium fitness programs, while iFIT workouts integrate with Galaxy Watch so users can track key metrics during guided sessions. With Fitness Index, they receive a holistic view of their physical fitness in a single, easy-to-understand score, with personalized recommendations. Looking ahead, Duffy pointed to Samsung’s Health Assistant as a way to bring a user’s Fitness Index, goals and activity history together to surface the most relevant workout at the right moment.

“Exercise is not just about being active — it’s about understanding your body, building sustainable habits and having the right guidance at the right time. By combining iFIT’s expert-led experiences with Samsung Health’s connected insights, we can help more people make movement a meaningful part of their everyday lives.”

▲ Kevin Duffy from iFIT

But content and insights alone, Dr. Pak noted, don’t close the last mile. The harder question is how to move from engagement to activation. Samsung designs for real life, recognizing that people slip and miss goals most of the time — and that those moments are precisely when timely, well-contextualized support matters most.

The real measure, he argued, is not how often the system nudges someone, but how many healthy actions actually happen — a doctor’s low-salt advice quietly showing up as items in a grocery cart or a workout that meets a person where they actually are that day. Poria added that this is the true shift: from nudging people to changing the choice in front of them.

Clinical Credibility and Privacy: Trust Earned Through Evidence

Dr. Pak turned next to the question of trust — noting that wearable data is now something most clinicians have seen, but far fewer have been able to build into their day-to-day care. Closing that gap, he said, is a matter of evidence, workflow and trust.

Rohit Ail, Head of the Technology Incubation Lab at Samsung R&D Institute UK (SRUK), spoke to how his team works to generate clinical evidence in real-world settings.

“Our goal is to meet the standards expected by clinicians, researchers and regulatory bodies and that means generating evidence in real-world clinical environments. This commitment builds on Samsung’s growing body of clinical research and validation evidence.”

He referenced ongoing collaborations across Europe, including partnerships with the NHS and clinical validation studies with leading hospitals. With San Cecilio University Hospital in Spain and Gemelli in Italy, Samsung is working on identifying and managing cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk using AI and decision-support technologies; with Fondazione IRCCS in Italy, the focus is on understanding and addressing the late effects faced by adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors through AI-based digital phenotyping and a non-invasive, holistic approach.

On privacy, Ail noted that Samsung considers user data to belong to the user, with Samsung acting as custodian.

“Trust begins with protecting users’ data. Samsung takes a three-layer approach: Samsung Knox for device-level security, GDPR-compliant infrastructure and alignment with the European Health Data Space framework.”

He added that SRUK has also developed a Decentralized Clinical Trial framework, in which participant identities remain under the control of healthcare organizations and data is pseudonymized from the outset.

▲ Rohit Ail from Samsung R&D Institute UK

Advanced AI and Research: Reading the Body’s Signals

If everyday reach and clinical trust are two of the three pillars, intelligence is what binds them together. Dr. Pak introduced foundation models as a genuine turning point — a shift from population averages to something truly personal.

Otávio Penatti, Head of the Health AI R&D Team at Samsung R&D Institute Brazil (SRBR), explained what a foundation model for health actually means.

“A health foundation model is an AI model that uses self-supervised learning to learn meaningful features from unlabeled biosignal data. At Samsung, we are advancing health foundation model research across multiple global research teams, combining expertise in biosignal intelligence, wearable AI and personalized health insights. Building on the success of large language models, we can now interpret complex biosignals — such as ECG, ACC and PPG — not as isolated data points, but as a structured biological language. These signals can be measured through wearable devices in everyday situations and by applying foundation models to understand these biological patterns, we have the potential to provide more accurate predictions and continuous, personalized health insights.”

▲ Otávio Penatti from Samsung R&D Institute Brazil

Three Focus Areas, One Goal

To close, Dr. Pak asked each panelist for a one-sentence vision of Connected Care in the era of AI five years from now.

• Kartik Poria (Samsung Food): “In five years, eating well won’t run on willpower — it’ll feel like having a chef and a dietitian in your pocket, turning what your body needs into what’s for dinner, day after day.”
• Kevin Duffy (iFIT): “A coach that knows your body and adapts every workout to who you are that day.”
• Rohit Ail (SRUK): “Care that clinicians trust and patients control — evidence-based and private by design.”
• Otávio Penatti (SRBR): “AI that understands the body’s language and acts before problems begin.”

Dr. Pak closed by tying the threads together: everyday behavior, clinical trust and personal AI — three focus areas, one goal of closing the first and last mile to scale prevention while meeting people where they are. “The future of health is connected, trusted and proactive — and it’s a road we’re glad to be traveling together.”