Samsung elevates customer Meanwhile, at Samsung Research, experts are It is deploying augmented reality so customers experiences exploring AI to make customer interactions can use their phones to get the behind-the- with devices and appliances hassle-free and scenes story of the coffee, from sourcing to Customers are also the focal point at Samsung, natural. It’s what the company calls “multimodal roasting to how their cup is brewed right in front the South Korean electronics behemoth. Take interactions,” where devices and appliances can of them. Samsung NEXT Ventures, the investment offer multiple modes of interaction, including arm of Samsung NEXT—an innovation group speech, sight and touch. For a customer, this On the business side, the company regularly within Samsung dedicated to identifying new could mean giving sign-language directions to conducts cohort-based learning journeys on the growth opportunities. It is looking to provide vacuum cleaners or voice commands to turn cloud, where 20 to 30 partners come together an exceptional customer experience by on or off air-conditioners. Today, AI systems use and focus not on learning esoteric technologies, getting close to where customers are—with deep learning to achieve this type of elevated but on building hackathon-style applications. edge computing. As such, it is developing user experience. This illustrates how cloud capabilities are innovative approaches to offset the lower enabling a new kind of creative freedom for compute power and lower data processing Getting creative with coffee organizations willing to invest. capabilities of edge devices. Imagine a future in which every device in your vicinity draws on Then there’s Starbucks again. On the customer- Mini clouds of edge devices the resources of every other device around you facing side, the company is trying to 昀椀gure to form a system stronger than the sum of its out how their baristas can better serve regular combine the best of both parts—an ecosystem of connected doorbells, patrons. Achieving that kind of personalization smart speakers and TVs, all within the same at a global scale can be daunting. worlds—the low-latency neighborhood. The resulting mini clouds— formed of edge devices owned by multiple The company is approaching the challenge by benefits of computing on people or even companies—could combine the using cloud-based analytics on the edge to let low-latency bene昀椀ts of computing on the edge, customers opt-in to personalized drive-through the edge, with the brute with some of the brute computing power of the menus that feature their regular brews as well as computing power of the cloud. cloud, bringing us the best of both worlds. recommendations based on past purchases. Ever–ready for every opportunity 31