Samsung and Munich Re's Hartford Steam Boiler (HSB) unit, which offers insurance for equipment breakdown, are planning to leverage IoT sensors, AI and smart appliances to spin up personalized home insurance. Welcome to the 2026 monetization of AI use cases.
The model was outlined as part of Samsung's First Look presentation at CES 2026, which included a plan that revolves around connecting and embedding on-device and cloud AI throughout its appliance lineup with a unified OneUI experience. More thoughts on that later including my working theory that consumers will pay premiums to have dumb appliances that just do what they're supposed to and are reliable.
But the HSB-Samsung partnership is worth noting because it's a financial incentive that may prod consumers to bring more AI into their everyday experiences. Now you may not need or want Bixby as an AI experience or Google Gemini powered AI vision to examine the food in your fridge or AI recipe recommendations, but with some financial incentives you might. The catch: HSB insurance appears to mean that everything in your house needs to be connected via Samsung's SmartThings.
Based on Samsung's presentation, even your steam wrinkle iron needs a Qualcomm Dragonwing processor.
However, the HSB partnership with Samsung is going to expand beyond a pilot in the US to more states. HSB President and CEO Greg M. Barats said smart appliances connected to SmartThings can lower risk and premiums.
"Using information from these connected appliances, we assess the characteristics of your smart home and enable a truly personalized offer, knowing that you have appliances smart enough to alert you a small leak before it floods your kitchen, we can help you avoid costly, time consuming claims."
In a nutshell, HSB and Samsung want to apply the industrial AI preventative maintenance use case to your home.
HSB in 2025 launched its Meshify Defender Slim sensor, powered by Amazon Sidewalk, to monitor buildings and homes for water leaks and frozen pipes. HSB and Flume also offer water leak protection.
This pilot with HSB and Samsung is worth watching since it highlights how AI may be monetized going forward. Use of AI and models in insurance is also notable.
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Thoughts on Samsung's AI strategy
Samsung's First Look included a 130-inch TV, an AI-driven Family Hub refrigerator, a Bespoke AI Laundry Combo that eliminates the need to transfer loads of laundry and a Bespoke AI Jet Bot Steamer.
TM Roh, CEO and Head of Samsung’s Device eXperience (DX) Division, said:
"Our mission is clear to be your companion to AI living, and our strategy is simple. We will harness the full scale of Samsung to create technologies and experiences that surely matter to people. We will embed AI across every category and every product and every service to deliver one seamless, unified AI experience. Our device portfolio puts us in every moment of daily life, giving us unique consumer understanding."
Here's the opportunity and the problem:
- Samsung ships more than 500 million devices each year and has a treasure trove of consumer data. But my confidence that Samsung can provide one unified experience isn't high. Samsung can't resist layering its Bixby assistant on top of Gemini. App conflicts are everywhere on a Samsung smart phone to the point where I ditched Samsung for Google's Pixel and Motorola's Razr. I don't need that UI disaster on my fridge.
- It's not clear anyone is asking for AI features on their appliances. I just want my washer and dryer to work without some Samsung sensor freaking out. Confession: My Samsung dryer is a royal pain and works once in a while. If the Samsung appliance didn't come with the house it wouldn't make the cut.
- AI everywhere sounds interesting on stage, but annoying in real life.
- Ultimately, people will pay up for dumb appliances. Some appliance maker should just market with a line like: "Dumb appliances that just do what they're supposed to do reliably. Every time. For years."
- Samsung has a good security ground game with Samsung Knox and on-device AI, but it's unclear whether consumers are going to be into sharing data with insurers. The data sharing will depend solely on the size of the discount. Details on the HSB discounts were sparse in Samsung's CES 2026 keynote.
