Samsung hosts forum focused on agentic AI
Richard Ho, head of hardware at OpenAI, delivers a keynote speech during the Samsung AI Forum 2026 at Samsung Electronics' Seocho offices in Seoul, Wednesday. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics held its annual artificial intelligence (AI) forum Wednesday, bringing together global experts to discuss how agentic AI — systems that can make decisions and carry out tasks on their own — can be turned into real-world business results.
The Samsung AI Forum 2026, held at the company's Seocho office building in southern Seoul, marked its 10th year with the theme "The Agentic Shift: From Intelligence to Impact."
Discussions focused on agentic AI and physical AI, which refers to AI that operates in the physical world, such as robots.
About 400 people attended, including 100 professors and researchers from Korean graduate schools and 300 Samsung employees. The event also streamed live on YouTube.
"Agentic AI will go beyond simple technological innovation to bring fundamental changes to the way we work and to organizational culture," Samsung Vice Chairman and CEO Jun Young-hyun said in his welcoming remarks.
In the morning keynote session, Richard Ho, head of hardware at OpenAI, discussed how agentic AI built on large language models could change businesses and industries. David Green, an AI technology leader for Asia Pacific and Japan at Amazon Web Services, presented security and governance strategies for deploying agentic AI safely and cost-effectively.
Ranjay Krishna, a professor at the University of Washington, outlined an approach for building high-performance robotics with smaller AI models. Yoon Kim, a Samsung Research executive who is also a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, introduced next-generation "agentic intelligence" architecture.
The afternoon was split into two tracks. The first, run by Samsung's Device eXperience division, which covers consumer electronics and mobile devices, featured sessions on efficient AI, physical AI and continual learning, including on-device AI and world models, which predict how situations will unfold in the real world.
The second, run by the Device Solutions division, which handles the company's chip business, covered AI applications in semiconductor design and manufacturing. Partners including Dell Technologies and Anthropic shared how companies are putting trusted AI agents to work and building enterprise "AI factories."
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.