Not to be outdone by Google, which has plans to integrate its Gemini large language models in premium Google TV sets this year, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are collaborating with Microsoft on an alternative.
They said they’re working with the software giant to integrate Microsoft Copilot into their 2025 TV models. The Microsoft Copilot is a digital assistant that’s likely known to many office workers already, integrating with software like Microsoft Windows and Office.
Samsung and LG revealed their partnerships with Microsoft at CES 2025, with the former showcasing its vision for the future of AI-enabled smart TVs. It provided a demo of the Copilot in action on a Samsung TV, showing how it was able to book a Las Vegas sightseeing itinerary based on the user’s spoken commands. It presented the daily trips using a selection of rich graphics and maps, and gave the user the opportunity to edit it as desired.
Whether or not that exact functionality comes to Samsung’s 2025 TVs remains to be seen, but it’s definitely something the company is working towards, and in the meantime, the Copilot will likely enable simpler features such as voice search, and answering questions about TV shows and movies.
Samsung said Microsoft Copilot is a part of its broader Vision AI initiative announced at CES. The initiative follows a decision to remove Google Assistant from all of its Smart TVs and monitors last year, ostensibly due to a change in its terms and conditions.
"In collaboration with Microsoft, several 2025 Samsung Smart TVs and Smart Monitors will feature Microsoft Copilot,” the company said. “This partnership allows you to explore a wide range of Copilot services, including personalized content recommendations.”
LG confirmed that Microsoft Copilot will be integrated within all of its 2025 OLED TVs, including the G5, M5, C5 and B5, which were announced this week.
The company explained that it has already been using large language models to power AI search capabilities in its OLED TVs, helping to understand conversational context and subtle user intentions. By integrating Microsoft Copilot, it hopes to enhance these processes even more, helping viewers to “find and organise complex information using contextual clues”, it said.
Samsung and LG appear to be turning to Microsoft in order to compete with the likes of Sony, Hisense and TCL, which are getting a refreshed Google TV platform that integrates a new Gemini AI experience in their TVs.
With this, users will be able to have natural language conversations with their Google TV, making it easier to search for content and ask and receive answers to questions about travel, health, history, space, science and more.
Google said Gemini AI will present its answers in on-screen text that can also be read aloud for those who are hard of hearing. In addition, it will surface what it deems to be the most relevant videos from YouTube.
For news-related searches, Google said Gemini will only provide results from trusted media organization’s YouTube channels, such as CNN, BBC and NBC. While the company may be pushing YouTube a tad too hard in this area, the answers it provides can certainly be useful to many viewers.
