When TM Roh enters the room, it’s obvious that he has mastered the art of nunchi — literally translated, “eye measure”. It means the president and head of mobile experience business at Samsung Electronics can read a room, like speed-reading. That’s exactly what he did when we, as part of a select group of journalists from India, met the man in Paris the day after the launch of the new foldable phones and other devices from the South Korean company.
The day before, on July 10, a lot had unfolded — Galaxy Z Fold6, Galaxy Z Flip6, Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Watch 7, Galaxy Watch Ultra and the Galaxy Buds3 series. Questions were in plenty and all he had to do is find comfort in nunchi, which emphasises speed and quick thinking.
It was business at the speed of thought when we asked him if screen time has been on the rise as we are turning to our phones often to find answers driven by artificial intelligence. After all, Samsung has turned out to be one of the first companies to roll out the red carpet for AI when in January a number of new features were announced for the Galaxy S24 series of phones and the journey just got more engaging with the launch of the new set of devices.
“After we launched Galaxy AI with S24, we incorporated AI capabilities to previous generations that were launched since 2022, including Galaxy S22, Galaxy S23, and foldable Z-series that were launched after 2022. They were upgraded with AI capabilities. As people use AI features more, we wanted to understand if their screen time has increased. The fact is more consumers are using AI capabilities, so screen time has actually increased. To give you specific numbers, of course, there is regional variation, but on average, globally, there has been an increase of five to 15 per cent in screen time after the introduction of Mobile AI,” said TM.
Smarts that matter
Samsung plans to surf the AI wave for a long time. It can offer features that will make the workflow easier for users. When the company launched its first AI-branded phone at the start of the year with the Galaxy S24, TM suggested there would be a number of iterations with future devices.
The new foldable phones — Galaxy Z Flip6 and Galaxy Z Fold6 — are not just refined from a hardware perspective and are lighter, the suit of AI offerings is excellent.
For example, the extension of the Circle to Search feature: Say your children come to you with a complicated math problem and you need an answer there and then. All you have to do is draw a circle around the math problem and see the results in real-time. Not just that: You also get a step-by-step solution. Another AI smart: Imagine walking down a street in, say, Japan, and you come across a number of billboards. Samsung devices can give you the translation (in your language of choice) placed in the exact position of the original text.
More practical AI features are coming your way. Many a time we get PDF files in a language that’s beyond our understanding. For example, you get a PDF file that tells you — in French — how to fix the engine of a particular vintage car. Instead of having to manually translate chunks of text, the entire PDF can be translated in a single shot, without playing around with the format. If there are graphs in the PDF, those too get translated.
There is something about the new phones that bring people together — Conversation Mode and Listening Mode. As the name suggests, Listening Mode can listen to a speech or the voice in a video and translate it into the language of your choice. With Conversation Mode, put your Fold phone in Tent Mode, so one user can see the inside screen while the other can see the cover screen. Say it’s a conversation between someone who speaks only French while the other, only Korean. The conversation gets translated in real-time. It breaks down language barriers.
“Mobile AI is only beginning, and as it further advances and becomes sophisticated, it will lead to new requirements for hardware specifications and there will be a certain expansion in services and applications based on mobile AI. I strongly believe that mobile AI will be a new driving force for mobile devices,” said TM.
Offering AI features is not an easy task because the company had to decide on the set of features that could be processed on-device and those that need the Cloud. This is especially important if Samsung needs to offer AI-driven features beyond the latest and greatest flagship devices.
“We decided to go for the structure of hybrid AI with Galaxy AI. We also advanced on that front because we understand there is a consumer need for the utilisation of generative AI, but at the same time, with the concern of privacy. To resolve these two issues at the same time, to satisfy these two demands at the same time, on-device AI was a must because information will stay on the device, will not go to the Cloud, and the information will be utilised on the device,” he said.
On-device AI takes care of important features like real-time translation, interpreter, Live Translate functionality that is quite “latency sensitive”. The AI feature needs to be available even when there is no Internet connection. This is where hardware optimisation comes in.
The company has been founding AI centres in key cities around the world for a long time: “So in this era of mobile AI, we were faster than anywhere else in implementing mobile AI and delivering the benefit to the consumers.”
India is important to the plan
Before slipping into the role of president and head of Samsung’s MX business, TM served as EVP and head of R&D for the mobile communications business since 2017 and as president and CTO of the mobile communications business in 2019 where he led the development of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone series. Prior to that, he served as head of product strategy at Samsung Mobile, where he managed the entire product portfolio and roadmap for the division.
Over the decades, he has played an instrumental role in the development of some of Samsung’s most innovative and market-leading products, such as the Galaxy S, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Tab, Galaxy Book series and line-up of smartwatches and other wearables. He is also credited with bringing foldable smartphones to the mainstream with the Galaxy Z series. In other words, the man knows products inside out. TM is, in fact, the youngest president ever appointed at Samsung.
The new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 and Galaxy Z Flip6 on display at an event in Paris
Always on the move, keeping him going is the thought that breakthroughs can come from anywhere in the age of AI. “The unique characteristic of mobile devices is that it is what customers carry with them all the time, whenever, wherever. They get information, share and communicate the information, utilise the information when they want to. That is a very important and unique role of mobile devices,” said TM.
He understands the importance of the Indian market to attain the company’s dreams. “The Indian market is one of the markets where the foldables are growing exponentially, and at the centre lies Galaxy foldables. Particularly, making health AI possible on our new products like foldable, watch and new foldable products, the contribution and efforts of Indian R&D centres were immense.”
TM said Noida and Bangalore R&D centres have become among the biggest R&D centres in Samsung and MX business. They are busy developing flagship products as well as contributing to the development of Galaxy AI technologies.
“We expect the market demand this year will also grow and we have high expectations about the Indian customers and consumers adopting the new foldable Z Flip6 and Fold6 with the incorporation of Galaxy AI that is optimised for foldable.”
The Galaxy Ring is a new addition to the Samsung portfolio
Nunchi, though an old Korean concept, is well suited for modern life because it requires speed and adaptability. And TM has got what is required to attain it — a quiet mind and razor-sharp focus, helping him guide his team to come up with AI features that will take phones beyond being black slabs.
