Mobile World Congress: Telekom to present AI assistant and smart glasses

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Deutsche Telekom plans to introduce an AI assistant for phone calls. Abdu Mudesir, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Telekom, announced this in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The AI-powered assistant, called "Magenta AI Call Assistant," is set to be unveiled next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the world's largest mobile communications trade fair.

The AI assistant will be integrated directly into the mobile network operated by Telekom, thus making AI functions accessible even to people without smartphones. By saying "Hey Magenta," users can call upon the AI assistant in future phone calls, which will then be available for tasks such as answering questions, live translations, call summaries, or automated calendar entries. "Our AI assistant acts as a trusted partner for all customers," Mudesir told the newspaper.

For the AI assistant to be invoked, the phone call must be initiated from the Telekom network. The called party can meanwhile be connected via the networks of competing mobile network operators in Germany, such as Vodafone or Telefónica.

Development partners not yet disclosed

It is undisputed that Deutsche Telekom has not developed the "Magenta AI Call Assistant" alone. However, the DAX-listed company is not yet revealing who its partners are. According to Mudesir, they are working with the best in the industry, including both European and American companies.

Telekom would be the first network operator worldwide to integrate an AI assistant directly into a mobile network. So far, major US tech corporations rely on apps that provide access to AI chatbots. Autonomous AI agents typically access the model families of major AI developers like OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic via APIs.

Telekom aims to enter the AI wearables business

However, the "Magenta AI Call Assistant" is not the only innovation in the field of artificial intelligence that Telekom intends to present at the Mobile World Congress. According to presentation documents obtained by Handelsblatt, the DAX-listed company plans to unveil its AI glasses next week. A Telekom spokesperson confirmed the content of the documents upon request. A functional prototype will be presented at the Mobile World Congress as part of a live demo. At the same time, the Telekom spokesperson emphasized that the product is merely a design study and not a product announcement. The goal is to demonstrate what is possible with available hardware and AI infrastructure.

RayNeo likely involved

According to Handelsblatt's information, the Chinese manufacturer RayNeo, a subsidiary of the Chinese electronics group TCL, is involved in the development of Telekom's smart glasses. The AI glasses are likely based on the already available model RayNeo X3 Pro, which features two integrated displays, a camera, microphones, and speakers.

Telekom presumably intends to integrate its own "Magenta AI" software into the smart glasses. The smart glasses are then expected to have agentic AI capabilities. Users should be able to retrieve information, translate texts, or receive information about their surroundings via voice commands. This would make the glasses similar in functionality to the smart glasses from Meta and Ray-Ban.

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