Samsung and Google have expanded their strategic partnership to launch Ballie, an innovative AI-powered home companion robot. Ballie is a soccer ball-sized autonomous robot designed to roam homes, control smart devices, project videos, and handle various tasks through voice commands. This collaboration, officially announced in Samsung's press release here, marks a significant step forward in home automation technology.

The Ballie robot will combine Google’s powerful Gemini AI models with Samsung’s proprietary SmartThings ecosystem. This enables Ballie to handle multimodal capabilities for voice, audio, and visual inputs, providing a seamless user experience. The robot is set to launch in the U.S. and South Korea this summer, with future plans for third-party app support. Ballie, first introduced at CES 2020, has undergone several iterations and is now ready for its official release.