Sam Altman Told 50 Samsung Executives the Next AI Device Is 'the Next Version of the Smartphone' and He Wants to Build It With Them

If the head of ChatGPT thinks the future isn't a phone full of apps but an AI device that runs your life for you, what's a phone maker supposed to do? His answer, reportedly: build it with him.

What happened

South Korea's Financial News published an exclusive on Nov. 11 laying out the Q&A from a session OpenAI CEO Sam Altman held Oct. 31 with Samsung Group executives at Samsung's training center in Yongin, south of Seoul. About 50 leaders from Samsung's electronics, finance and biotech affiliates attended, according to the report.

Asked what kind of device would become an AI companion, Altman said, "It will be the next version of the smartphone." He described wanting a device that's as unobtrusive as possible, with AI, not apps, proactively reaching into and managing people's physical and digital lives. He also said he'd like to "work closely with Samsung to build a joint device," the paper reported.

What else he said

On AI glasses: great for personal productivity, he said, but when someone in a conversation is looking at you through a camera, it feels like technology is wedging itself between people, and that makes him personally uncomfortable.

On privacy: next-generation devices will pull in information from the physical world, he said, but privacy and overdependence on AI are things society as a whole will have to manage.

On business: he urged Samsung to go all in. Using AI as an assistant might make workers two to three times more productive, he argued, but handing it entire workflows could make them up to 100 times more productive. He said OpenAI's coding agent, Codex, has reached the point where if someone asks for more staff, it pushes back and asks them to prove why AI can't do the job. That's Altman's claim and can't be independently checked.

Why it carries weight

OpenAI has already bought the hardware startup co-founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive and is widely expected to release its own AI device. Financial News reported that OpenAI is aiming for next year and that a screenless smart speaker smaller than a palm is the likely form. That's a media report; OpenAI hasn't confirmed it. Samsung, one of the world's largest phone makers, is separately launching smart glasses that use Google's Gemini.

What we know and don't

This comes from a Q&A transcript a newspaper obtained, not from an official announcement. Altman saying he wants to collaborate is not a signed deal, and there's no word on whether or how Samsung would take part. Earlier attempts at AI gadgets meant to replace the phone, like the Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1, flopped, a reminder of how hard this is.

What it means for you

Your phone isn't going anywhere soon. But if companies like OpenAI and Samsung team up, a few years from now you might carry something different: no tapping through apps, just say what you want and it books dinner, reshuffles your schedule and answers your messages. The upside is convenience; the trade-off is handing an AI far more of your daily life. Altman himself acknowledged that privacy and overreliance are problems that won't go away.

Original sources published: Financial News (South Korea) exclusive, Nov. 11, 2026, 16:30 Beijing time (UTC+8; 17:30 Seoul time); SamMobile, Nov. 11, 2026, 23:56 Beijing time; IT Home, Nov. 12, 2026, 09:02 Beijing time