The Korean giant's consumer device chief TM Roh has explained how the company is "open to strategic co-operation" as it bids to cut down Apple's lead in the worldwide smartphone market.

He explained that Samsung research indicates that consumers are using several AI services instead of relying on a single platform and feels that greater choice for Galaxy users would stand out in an area where Apple is yet to roll out many of the AI features that it first unveiled last year.

Roh told the Financial Times: "We got into that preparation earlier than others, (and) that is how we have taken and maintained leadership in mobile AI."

The Samsung chief's comments show how AI is becoming the next battleground in the bid to sell smartphones.

As global handset sales stagnate and hardware upgrades only offer marginal gains, tech companies are predicting that AI-powered assistants and search tools will influence which brand customers will buy from.

Last week, Samsung announced a range of S26 devices, including a suite of new AI tools with Perplexity added to the operating system.

Users can summon the voice assistant by saying "Hey Plex".

Samsung has already integrated Google's Gemini AI models into its devices and recently showcased a voice assistant that can book a taxi without users having to push a button.

Roh said: "Consumers are not bound to one AI platform, they are utilising multiple AI models. We are open to all solutions... choice, I believe, is how Galaxy AI appeals to consumers."

Samsung has also decided to increase US prices for its S26 range by $100 for two models - partly because of a memory chip supply crunch.

Memory suppliers such as SK Hynix and Samsung have prioritised making high-bandwidth memory for AI data centres over chips used in smartphones.

Roh explained: "A lot of this is affected by the current ongoing expansion of AI infrastructure."