Samsung’s “AI Living” Push Turns the Home Into a New CX Front Door
Plus: Empathy is becoming a design requirement — not a “nice to have”
📅 January 5, 2026 | ⏱️ 4-min read
Good Morning!
The Executive Hook: Welcome to 2026. The year is already off to a fast start — and CES is a perfect reminder of what’s changing (and how quickly it becomes “normal”). Every booth seems to be pitching some version of the same idea: AI that’s always there, across devices, quietly helping in the background.
What’s interesting from a CX angle isn’t the novelty. It’s the habit shift. When people get used to a TV, fridge, or phone that can guide them in the moment — suggest, remind, nudge — they start expecting that same kind of help everywhere. Not in a flashy way. In a “why do I have to go hunt for support?” way.
So even if your current experience is solid on paper, the real question is: does it feel present where customers are… or does it feel like a separate system they have to go find?
🚨 THE DEEP DIVE: Samsung wants your devices to feel like a “companion” (and that changes expectations fast)
The Big Picture: At CES 2026’s “First Look,” Samsung laid out a vision of AI as a cross-device companion — spanning TVs, appliances, services, and its connected ecosystem.
What’s happening:
Samsung is positioning AI as a unifying layer across categories (mobile, displays, appliances, services) to create a more personal, connected experience.
SmartThings has scaled to 430M+ users (as of December 2025), which is the real engine behind “AI across the home.”
The Family Hub fridge is getting an AI Vision upgrade built with Google Gemini to improve food recognition and help with meal planning/food management.
Samsung also described a shift toward more proactive “care” experiences, supported by its device ecosystem, with security anchored in Knox/Knox Matrix.
Why it matters: This is how customer expectations change without a big announcement from you. When the home itself starts “guiding” people — suggesting, reminding, nudging — customers start expecting that same tone everywhere else. Which means your support experience can’t feel like a disconnected system. It has to feel like a continuation of whatever the customer has already been told by their devices.
The takeaway: Start treating the smart home ecosystem like a real CX channel. Map the top “at home” moments where customers get stuck (setup, troubleshooting, product questions), and make sure your answers are consistent, simple, and easy to hand off to a human when the situation gets complicated.
Source: Samsung Global Newsroom
📊 CX BY THE NUMBERS: People want AI… but they don’t want it to “perform empathy”
Data Source: EY Studio+ (Dec 17, 2025)
60% of people say they’re open to using conversational AI tools.
58% would rather engage with shapeless conversational AI than a humanlike form.
67% want conversational AI to be factual and direct rather than emotive.
The Insight: This is a useful reality check for CX leaders. Customers do want help in the moment — but they don’t necessarily want an AI to act like a person. In high-stakes situations, “calm, clear, and competent” often beats “warm and chatty.” If you’re designing AI experiences, build for emotional awareness (don’t escalate stress)… without forcing a personality on the customer.
Source: EY Studio+
🧰 THE AI TOOLBOX: Brainfish (In-product AI Support)
The Tool: Brainfish drops AI help inside your product — so customers don’t have to leave what they’re doing to go “search for support.”
What it does: It answers questions with context from what the user is doing, can guide them step-by-step, and can hand off to a human when it can’t resolve something cleanly.
What this changes for real humans (and why CX should care):
People stay in momentum. When help shows up right at the moment of confusion, customers feel capable instead of stuck. That’s a different emotional experience than “go read a help article.”
It quietly resets expectations. Once customers experience “the product helps me where I am,” everything else starts to feel… outdated. Even if it used to be fine.
Your agents get the hard stuff. AI can soak up the routine “where do I click” questions, but the tickets that reach humans will be the complicated, high-emotion ones. That’s not bad — it just means you need to coach for judgment and calm, not speed.
CX Use Case: Use it to catch onboarding drop-offs in the moment, then escalate with full context so the customer doesn’t have to repeat themselves.
Trust: In-product AI feels authoritative. So it has to be right — and it has to know when it’s not.
More: Brainfish
⚡ SPEED ROUND: Quick Hits
EU signals tougher tech enforcement in 2026 — more pressure on big platforms under rules like the DMA/DSA, which ultimately shapes what AI experiences can do (and what they must prove).
Source: Financial TimesSamsung’s smart fridge gets voice-open/close doors — and it’s pairing that with Google’s LLM inside its food-recognition system. The “device as the first helper” trend is accelerating.
Source: The VergeCustomer trust is getting re-centered as the real CX metric — a useful reminder that new tech only helps if it strengthens confidence, not just convenience.
Source: Forbes
🔭 THE SIGNAL: Support that feels present — not performative
There’s a thread running through all of today’s stories that’s easy to miss if you focus only on the tech: customers want support that feels present, not performative.
EY’s data is a good gut-check here. People are open to conversational AI, but many don’t want it pretending to be human. They want it clear, factual, and steady—especially when something matters. Pair that with in-product support like Brainfish, and you can see where this is going: the best experiences won’t be the ones that sound the most human. They’ll be the ones that show up at the right time, understand the situation, and know when to bring in a real person.
That’s the new bar: help that’s contextual, calm, and connected—without the customer having to chase it.
See you tomorrow,
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