Samsung Freestyle+ projector adds AI OptiScreen for CES 2026

On its face, Freestyle+ is a lifestyle gadget, but it reveals how quickly AI is becoming table stakes even in commodity consumer hardware. Samsung isn’t selling this as a ‘projector with some ML inside’; it’s leading with AI OptiScreen and a Vision AI Companion that promises to remove setup friction entirely. That framing matters: as TVs, projectors, and monitors quietly absorb AI inference capabilities, they become de facto edge nodes for ambient computing—exactly the kind of surface future agents and world models will inhabit.([news.samsung.com](https://news.samsung.com/uk/samsung-unveils-the-freestyle-ahead-of-ces-2026-showcasing-a-smarter-ai-portable-screen))

Strategically, it’s also another example of Korean and global OEMs racing to differentiate around AI-enhanced UX rather than raw pixels. In a world where OpenAI, Google, and Meta supply many of the core models, device makers need their own AI stories to avoid becoming dumb glass. If Freestyle+ and its successors gain traction, expect similar ‘AI-first’ projector and TV lines from Chinese and Japanese rivals, each tying into their preferred assistant ecosystems. That fragmentation of endpoints, all running moderately capable local models plus cloud agents, is an important substrate for any eventual AGI deployment: the smarter the edge, the less every interaction has to round-trip to a hyperscale data center.