Samsung's AI ball robot Ballie will probably be delayed due to identity crisis
Samsung's Ballie, a spherical home assistant robot, was set for a summer release, but there's been no update—raising doubts about its purpose and future.
Samsung Ballie
(Image: Samsung)
Samsung wanted to launch its AI-controlled ball robot Ballie on the market this summer, several years after it was first presented. However, it is not yet available and the launch is to be postponed further, according to reports from Samsung's home country. Ballie is therefore struggling with an identity crisis, as the South Korean company is questioning the purpose of such a household robot and its value for users, as many of the tasks intended for Ballie can already be carried out using a smartphone.
Samsung had already presented a precursor to Ballie at CES 2020, more than five years ago. Samsung then presented the first functions of the household assistant in 2024. At the beginning of this year, at CES 2025, Samsung presented the AI ball robot Ballie for the home again. This is intended to be used as a personal assistant in the home and can perform various tasks there. In April, Samsung announced that the Ballie AI ball robot would be launched on the market with Google Gemini in the summer, initially in Korea and the USA.
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Ballie receives instructions via an integrated microphone. This can be used to operate smart home devices by voice command, for example. An integrated AI should be able to answer various questions in just a few seconds. Samsung has brought Google on board to integrate Gemini's multimodal reasoning into the robots. Together with Samsung's own large AI language models, Ballie can "process and understand a variety of inputs, including audio and voice data, visual data from its camera and sensor data from its environment".
Concerns about usefulness and price
But now the Korea Times reports that Samsung is once again holding back Ballie. The company has not yet given any reasons for the delay in the market launch, but according to industry insiders, Samsung is looking for the best positioning for the AI ball robot in apartments and houses that already have other devices that are also supported by artificial intelligence (AI). There are also concerns about the high price of Ballie, with market experts expecting it to cost more than 2,000 US dollars.
This is a high price for a device for which there are currently few reasons to buy it. Although the design as a cute spherical robot is likely to appeal to many users, most of Ballie's tasks can also be performed with modern smartphones, such as Samsung's own Galaxy phones with the so-called Galaxy AI. If customers already have smart home devices for monitoring children or pets, for example, which is what Ballie was initially advertised for, the AI ball robot would actually be superfluous.
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Market launch, price and EU availability still unclear
"Ballie may be technically mature, but Samsung is clearly still taking its time to gauge consumer reaction to price and practical application," said an industry representative. "Technological advancement does not necessarily guarantee sales, so the company appears to be proceeding cautiously in positioning Ballie." Even if Ballie's design seems basically finalized, Samsung could use the now longer time to availability to make changes to make the robot more attractive or useful.
So far, Samsung has not officially postponed the AI ball robot - it is still summer after all. But it remains to be seen when Ballie will actually be available. It is also still unclear whether the round robot will come to Europe after its market launch in South Korea and the USA and how much it will cost in this country.
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