Welcome to the AI Home: Mark Benson on Samsung’s Vision for the Future

[00:00:01] The biggest thing that I spend my time on is the same thing that has motivated me to even get into IoT and even in this career myself, which is the driving passion to simplify technology to enable meaningful connected experiences for users. And that drives me. That is the mission of SmartThings and that drives everything that I do.

[00:00:21] To thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape, brands must move at an ever increasing pace. I'm Matt Britton, founder and CEO of Suzy. Join me and key industry leaders as we dive deep into the shifting consumer trends within their industry, why it matters now and how you can keep up. Welcome to the Speed of Culture.

[00:00:43] Up today, live from CES in Las Vegas, we're thrilled to welcome Mark Benson, who's the head of Samsung SmartThings in the US for Samsung Electronics. Mark has been a leader in the technology space and has some great visions of where the smart home is headed and we're really excited to dive in today. Mark, great to see you. Mark Benson Yeah, it's great to be here, Matt. Mark Benson Absolutely. So the smart home has been something that's been so frustrating for consumers over the years just because the promise of a smart home and basically walking into a home and having it know,

[00:01:12] what you care about, what you like, have the lighting, the mood, the sound is so appealing. But often it's been frustrating for consumers to actually pull it all together. There's also been so many different brands and the ecosystems have been all over the place. Where is the state of the smart home moving forward? And why are you confident that we're going to be able to give consumers a better experience moving forward? Mark Benson Yeah, great question. I've been in the smart home for a long time and SmartThings has been really a pioneer in the space for a long time. And we've seen the changes over the years and it really has shifted.

[00:01:42] Mark Benson Early on in the smart home journey, it was really about like innovators, early adopters, people who were super comfortable with tech or even programming things. And they would seek out the technology, get it to work, you know, get through barriers that the everyday person really wasn't able to do. Mark Benson Yeah. Mark Benson And that has shifted now where, you know, if you're familiar with like a diffusion of innovation curve, where there's these like innovators, early adopters. But then there's this big part of the bell curve of like the mass market.

[00:02:11] Mark Benson Yeah, we're seeing with crypto right now, for example. Mark Benson With crypto, right. Yeah. And the smart home is really reaching that early majority of the mass market right now. And so the users who are experiencing the smart home now and buying devices and they want it to work just like you said, and to be interoperable. They are comfortable with tech relatively, but they're also not going to just buy something for the sake of buying it. They're going to do it to solve a certain problem or to make something better.

[00:02:36] Mark Benson And so to answer your question, to make it better and easy to use, we've been really focused on interoperability. Number one is just making sure that devices in the home really work well together, because that's what I think consumers expect, but hasn't always been there over the years. And then secondly, it's just the simplicity of the user experience and just making it like easy to use, easy to set up, easy to use. So we've been really focused on that.

[00:03:00] Mark Benson So one big piece of the consumer adoption habit of smart home technology has been voice. The premise of walking in and talking to your Alexa device and saying, turn the lights off or on or turn the alarm on. Voice has arguably not taken off to date the way that we thought. I remember 10 years ago, there's always other calls like the feature of voice is here. Because Siri and Alexa ultimately, I don't think paid off the way that people thought, but now they're getting a lot better.

[00:03:28] Mark Benson And now with AI, it's so much more reliable. I know that Alexa had talked about partnering with Anthropic in the AI front. Where do you look at voice, the evolution of voice and its role in the overall smart home? Mark Benson We have so many users that use voice to control their smart home. And one of the common things is to be able to use voice, you know, whether that's Alexa or Google Home, you know, or Bixby, to be able to trigger smart home routines. So if you have multiple brands in your home, like a Ring camera and Philips Hue lights, when smart things,

[00:03:57] Mark Benson You can easily set up a routine that says when there's motion on my Ring camera, turn on my lights, simple thing like that. But that routine can be triggered with your voice as well. Or you can set up good night routines. So you can say good night to your voice speaker. And then it can just initiate all these routines in your home. So we've seen that even though voice commerce and like that, the more complex interactions with voice have really not really worked out the way that people have thought. Mark Benson It's still a very useful tool for triggering smart home actions. And you're right, it is getting better with AI. Mark Benson Much better.

[00:04:27] Mark Benson And much more conversational. And I think we're going to see that more and more in the coming years. Mark Benson So what are some other ways you see AI accelerating the smart home? Mark Benson So one of the big ways is through personalization of the smart home. So being able to look at patterns and activities in the home and then be able to suggest with AI routines that can benefit users. In the SmartThings app today, there is that feature

[00:04:51] Mark Benson Where you can see suggested routines based on what you've been doing in the home, how your lights have been turning on and off. And then we'll suggest using AI these intelligent routines that are just easy to set up. Mark Benson So as a user, you don't have to say like, okay, I got to get in a different headspace. Like think about this little recipe I need to create and do that. It's like the AI is actually suggesting that for you. And then as a user, you can say, oh yeah, when I go to bed around that time when I trigger this routine,

[00:05:17] Mark Benson I would like to close my garage door shut off the lights, turn off the TVs, lock the doors. Thank you very much. And then that routine just gets created right away without much work, sort of cognitive effort from the user. Mark Benson Yeah. And of course, Samsung's in a unique position because your company has so many different devices that are in the home, right? You have obviously a huge assortment of televisions and you have refrigerators and other appliances in the home.

[00:05:41] Mark Benson How in your role are you leaning into that infrastructure to make sure that SmartThings becomes the kind of de facto platform of choice in driving this tomorrow? Mark Benson Yeah, Samsung has a vast portfolio. And since the acquisition of SmartThings, which was just over 10 years ago by Samsung, it's been a wonderful partnership of combining the breadth and power of Samsung's portfolio with the SmartThings software platform and being able to have that come together.

[00:06:05] Mark Benson Samsung's portfolio of products has so many fixture devices. They have long cycles in the home where they're not being replaced every year. Mark Benson Right, durables. Mark Benson Yeah. Mark Benson They're durables and they live for a long time and they're really homeowners depend on them to, you know, wash their clothes, wash the dishes, the TV that's in the center of their home. And so those are so foundational. And the Smart Home is also all the things around that like locks and lights and thermostats and cameras. And so we've really worked on making all of that interoperable

[00:06:35] Mark Benson And by putting more SmartThings technology into Samsung products, for instance, the SmartThings Hub is available in Samsung TVs, Family Hub refrigerators, smart displays. And so by doing that, consumers can have their Samsung products be the brains of their smart home without buying a separate smart home club, which is like a separate thing.

[00:06:58] Mark Benson So we've worked on integrating those to make the user experience be not only just on the mobile app, but also on the Family Hub refrigerator, also on the TV so that that experience is consistent across all those surfaces in the home. Mark Benson And I would imagine the proliferation of 5G is only going to accelerate the efficacy of all these individual tools within the home. Mark Benson Yeah. I mean, just the spread of just available network, low cost network and being able to connect all these different devices is really big.

[00:07:27] Mark Benson And also not only 5G, but also low power wireless mesh network technologies like Thread. Mark Benson And I don't know how familiar you are with the CSA or the Conductive Standards Alliance, but it's an alliance that has built a new standard called Matter. And it's a certification standard. You can think of it like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. But what it is, is it makes smart home devices be interoperable together. So if you buy a smart home device that has that Matter logo on it, then you can know as a consumer with high confidence,

[00:07:57] Mark Benson That's going to work with the rest of your stuff and be interoperable. So that is really a big game changer in the industry. Mark Benson But it's in the middle of adoption within the industry. The standard is there. It's mature. It's also developing. There's new device manufacturers that are adding support for it. SmartThings is Matter certified, of course. And so any Matter device you have just works with SmartThings already. Mark Benson But that's a really big thing that's happening in the industry right now.

[00:08:22] Mark Benson Yeah. And of course, the key to adoption, I mean, you and I are here talking about just advanced technology here at CES, but we don't represent mainstream America, right? Mark Benson And a lot of people are still trying to figure out how to change the input on their TV or they have still have DVD players, etc. Mark Benson So to accelerate this to the masses, ease of use and simplicity has to be everything.

[00:08:44] Mark Benson And ease of use and simplicity starts with the interface and the software and the form factor and the things people touch. How do you look at user experience for the consumer when it comes to how SmartThings basically has a surface area for consumer interaction? Mark Benson Yeah. So for people who have had a smart home for a long time, they might think of all kinds of really advanced sort of things they could do or what happens when the weather changes and what's going on with their lights and the curtains and everything. And all those things are possible. But the everyday user is not thinking about those things.

[00:09:14] Mark Benson Right. Mark Benson They're like buying a TV and then they're like, how do I set it up? Mark Benson As quickly as possible. Mark Benson As quickly as possible. And then, oh, I have a ring camera. How do I get that to work together with that? And it's just the ease of use and onboarding and initially starting to use those devices that is so important to the growth of the smart home. So we focused on things like we call calm onboarding, which is like the onboarding process. We don't want it to be frustrating, like where it's like, how does this work? I got to go read the manual this, but that it's just, it's calm, just works. Mark Benson Yeah.

[00:09:43] Mark Benson You just have the device easy, set it up and you're using it. And that, that process being simple is really foundational to creating a great smart home so people don't get frustrated right out of the gates. Mark Benson I don't think manuals are going to exist for much longer. I think families are going to have family chatbots and every device that's in the home, that manual will be loaded in the chatbot. And you could just say, why is my refrigerator blinking or doing this? And it'll just tell you like, what's the point of having manuals? No one knows where they are. No one wants to read through them. I think you're seeing that.

[00:10:14] Mark Benson Yeah, I think you're right. I think those hard copy manuals are the thing of the past. Yeah. Mark Benson Yeah. So a big discussion point here at CES in 2025 within the realm of AI is agents and AI agents. So obviously we've gone from 2024 where you're talking to AI and giving you information and writing blog posts or etc.

[00:10:39] Mark Benson But now AI is kind of delving into areas like computer use where you can have AI take over your computer and do things for you. And over time, and when I say over time, I mean the next three to six months, people are going to be using AI to do things for them, whether it's do grocery shopping or book travel, etc.

[00:10:55] Mark Benson And when I look at the combination of AI agents and the smart home, I see some pretty kind of amazing possibilities for consumers like sensors in your refrigerators, which I know kind of already exists, where if your milk is out, it'll reorder milk for you. Mark Benson And it'll know if it can connect with your calendar that you're on vacation, so it might not order it for you.

[00:11:14] Mark Benson And all of a sudden, a lot of these household chores slowly get taken care of. Maybe sensors in your lawn will see if you need the landscaper to come. Where do you see that all headed? Because to me, the technology has now arrived with 5G, with AI to make the whole notion of the Jetsons really come to life. Mark Benson Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, Matt. And in the smart home, so here at CES in 2025, we're showcasing a lot of things around AI for the home specifically. We call AI for all. Mark Benson I gotta check it out.

[00:11:43] Mark Benson Yeah, you gotta definitely check it out. And there's so many things in the home that are interesting with AI that are not just an AI agent that you interact with, but also like what's going on in terms of like spatial intelligence in the home, sensors that are sensing where are you, what sounds are happening, whether there's a baby crying or not, that can trigger alerts and notifications on that, being able to take care of your pets remotely. Also things like family care service, where you may have an aging loved one that wants to age at home, or someone who needs care that you're doing.

[00:12:13] Mark Benson Sure. Mark Benson And then using AI to look at sensors like how often that person opened the fridge and normally they would do that maybe 15 times a day. But then today it's been only three times and that can trigger an alert to the caretaker that's used based on AI, but trigger that alert to the caretaker to check up on their loved one, make sure everything's okay. Mark Benson So there's all of those use cases that are just exploding right now. And we're showing so many of those here at CES, but it is definitely an exciting time for AI in the home.

[00:12:42] Mark Benson Yeah, what's interesting is that you have this ecosystem, as we talked about earlier, of appliances, of doorables in the home, that you can kind of use as sort of like a foundational layer to how consumers interact. Mark Benson And then you have data that comes through these appliances in terms of how they use it, use that gives you a picture of the consumer and allows you to build on services on top of it that make their lives easier and better.

[00:13:05] Mark Benson Oh, absolutely. And using data to be able to make decisions or things in the home that really matter to users is like game changer. So one example is SmartThings Energy. So we have a service that's called SmartThings Energy, and you can get it right in the app for free.

[00:13:19] Mark Benson And what it does is it builds better awareness to the user of where energy is being consumed in their home, and then gives them tools to be able to manage that and reduce that energy. I don't know, Matt, if you're like me, but at the end of the month, when I get a utility bill, if it's higher than normal, I rarely know why. Mark Benson And if I think back to like three weeks ago, like what was I doing on that day that made it spike or someone in my home or my family? I have no idea. Mark Benson You also know maybe it's just rising energy costs. Mark Benson It may be that too. Right.

[00:13:47] Mark Benson And so with SmartThings Energy, what we're doing is giving more real-time feedback to users about what is going on in their home right now. Mark Benson And then they can schedule routines like turn the lights off when they're not in the room or change the thermostat settings when they leave the house or sign up for demand response programs. Mark Benson Like we have SmartThings Energy FlexConnect, where you can sign up to use SmartThings AI energy mode to save energy in your home. Mark Benson And then for that, you get energy stamps, which can be converted. Mark Benson And then for that, you get energy stamps, which can be converted. The stamps are rewards.

[00:14:16] Mark Benson So it's ways that can really benefit the consumer in their home, in their own pocketbook, but also benefit utilities and also benefit the world through these sustainable innovations. Mark Benson We'll be right back with The Speed of Culture after a few words from our sponsors. Mark Benson Moving forward, obviously, the power of AI is just obviously mind-blowing. Mark Benson And already, you know, Jensen Wang here at CES talked about some incredible new innovations that NVIDIA is bringing where consumers are going to have their own AI-powered personal computing device in the home.

[00:14:46] Mark Benson One area I think that's highly relevant to the smart home that might not be here today, but will probably be here in the next two to three years is robotics and in-home robotics. Mark Benson And like I think we're going to be at a point very soon where everyone's going to have their in-home robot that's going to do everything from cleaning to security monitoring. Mark Benson What are your thoughts on robotics? Mark Benson Is that a place that Samsung is playing in? Mark Benson Yeah, so I mean, robotics I think is an exciting new area and I agree with you. Mark Benson We're going to see more and more of that coming forward.

[00:15:14] Mark Benson We have some AI-enabled robot vacuum cleaners from Samsung that are really exciting that do things like intelligent object detection and avoidance. Mark Benson Yeah, also another sensor, too, of the home in terms of... Mark Benson Yes, another sensor in the home that also can work with things like pet care. Mark Benson Detect water leaks. Mark Benson Detect water leaks. Mark Benson Yeah, all of that stuff. Mark Benson I think to answer your question, it's a very exciting area and I think it's one of the things as we look forward in the smart home, robotics is something that will be a big player.

[00:15:42] Mark Benson And it's probably like other new tech where there's some early adopters that will welcome it into their home right away and love to have it. Mark Benson And then it will take a while for the mainstream user to get them down and the costs come down. Mark Benson So I think we'll see that and that will take some time, I think, for that to happen. Mark Benson But it's definitely an exciting use of AI that can really benefit people's lives. Mark Benson For sure. Mark Benson So shifting gears, we wrap up here, Mark.

[00:16:04] Mark Benson You're the CMO of SmartThings and obviously what an amazing role and what an amazing opportunity Samsung has and yourself has to really drive innovation in a really exciting space. Mark Benson How do you spend your time every day in your role and what's most important to you in driving success for your brand in 2025?

[00:16:23] Mark Benson Well, the biggest thing that I spend my time on is the same thing that has motivated me to even get into IoT and even in this career myself, which is the driving passion to simplify technology to enable meaningful connected experiences for users. Mark Benson And that drives me. Mark Benson That is the mission of SmartThings and that drives everything that I do.

[00:16:42] Mark Benson So in terms of what a day to day looks like and how I spend my time, there's everything from finance and resource planning, strategic planning, platform architecture and design support processes. Mark Benson Things we do with developer tools, partners and ecosystem expansion, business development into new services.

[00:17:00] Mark Benson It's all of these things, but all of them are with that singular focus of really simplifying tech, enabling interoperability in the home and making that possible for users to have meaningful connected experiences in their home to make their life more secure. Mark Benson That the things around them are easier to use, that their wellness and care for others is promoted and that they can live a better life. Mark Benson And that's really what drives me every day. Mark Benson And I would imagine being somewhere like CES and there really is nowhere like CES.

[00:17:28] Mark Benson You can walk to showroom floor and just see so much applicable innovation that's happening with companies of all different industries, whether it's automotive, whether it's healthcare. Mark Benson There's probably things that are happening that are giving you new ideas, whether it's new partnerships or new initiatives that you want to undertake on your own for SAMSA. Mark Benson Yeah, absolutely. Mark Benson There's so much innovation here that's shown and we're showcasing a lot of new innovation ourselves to here at CES.

[00:17:53] Mark Benson One of those things, just as an example that I'm really excited about it is the advent of what we call SmartThings Pro. Mark Benson And so that is essentially extending SmartThings beyond just the home to commercial enterprise and industrial application. Mark Benson So where are some of the use cases of that? Mark Benson So one of the use cases is with ships and commercial vessels and being able to monitor the operations on that vessel, whether that's a private vessel or a commercial vessel for the captain.

[00:18:23] Mark Benson Like a cargo ship going across the Atlantic. Mark Benson Like a cargo ship, that's right. Mark Benson Or it could be a passenger ship where then there's also a passenger experience through SmartThings that they can have while they're on that ship. Mark Benson And it's just one example of many, Matt, that's like commercial applications with like multifamily unit buildings or retail or hospitality, staying in a hotel and being able to have some of your smart home experience travel with you in your hotel room when you come. Mark Benson That should be the case anyway. Mark Benson It should be the case, right?

[00:18:53] Mark Benson When I go into hotels, I literally rip out the HDMI core from the back. Mark Benson I plug in my Samsung stick so I can, you know, watch TV. Mark Benson It's just that should be in every situation. Mark Benson It should disappear for you. Mark Benson I agree. Mark Benson I mean, you want to bring that with you. Mark Benson Yeah. Mark Benson Whether you're at home or whether you're traveling. Mark Benson Or in your vehicle. Mark Benson Or in your vehicle. Mark Benson That's right. Mark Benson And we're showcasing a big part of our Hyundai partnership here at CES as well this year.

[00:19:17] Mark Benson And that's just all about using the smart home in your car, being able to trigger routines at home even while you're in your car, or being able to have your home react to you when you're in your car. Mark Benson It's just a little bit more of a way to arrive at home to be able to turn on the lights or open the garage door or things like that. Mark Benson It's very exciting, not only inside the home, but also more and more expanding outside the home and into industrial applications, commercial and enterprise.

[00:19:39] Mark Benson You can imagine companies that have many office locations all around the world and they want to manage that and be more efficient and pull data from that. Mark Benson And it could save you money. Mark Benson It could save you time, et cetera. Mark Benson It would make so much sense. Mark Benson Yeah. Mark Benson There's so much outdated technology in the home and really everywhere. Mark Benson I mean, I just know of buying a beach house. Mark Benson Some of the technology hasn't changed in 20 years and you can't even update it on your own. Mark Benson You have to call somebody to come in and fix it. Mark Benson I'm not going to mention any names of companies, but that all has to change.

[00:20:07] Mark Benson And the consumer is way more savvy now. Mark Benson The homeowner is becoming a millennial who grew up with the internet and the household. Mark Benson They are not somebody who's necessarily as fearful of diving into so many things as they used to. Mark Benson 5G is everywhere. Mark Benson So the world needs to change and be catalyzed by easy connected experiences. Mark Benson Yes, I completely agree. Mark Benson Yeah, absolutely. Mark Benson So to wrap up here, when you look back on your career and obviously you've had a great run and it sounds like you're just getting started in some of the innovation at Samsung. Mark Benson What are some decisions that you think you made right along the way to put you in the CMO?

[00:20:37] Mark Benson So to wrap up here, what are some of the things that you're doing in the CMO seat today that maybe we can impart in some very younger listeners? Mark Benson So as a younger boy, I was really driven by wanting to do something that made a big impact in the world. Mark Benson But when I grew up and my family and the people that I knew, it was very much about art and music and psychology and the humanities essentially. Mark Benson And I did not see myself ever getting into tech. Mark Benson In fact, it was one of the careers that when my teacher, I think it was in fourth grade said, what is the one thing in the world that you do not want to be? Mark Benson And I said, an engineer.

[00:21:07] Mark Benson I still have that thing at home that was like, I don't want to do that because at that time, it didn't seem to connect with me on ways that I could make an impact. Mark Benson But fast forward to college, I took some classes on computer science and computers and I'd always been strong in math. Mark Benson And I realized that software really runs the world. Mark Benson It's everything from trained scheduling algorithms to implantable pacemakers and defibrillators to all the appliances and devices in your home, all kinds of stuff. Mark Benson And my eyes were totally opened up to the fact that you can make a real impact in the world.

[00:21:36] Mark Benson So throughout my career, that has really driven me as I've worked at different companies and gotten different promotions over time, has really been laser focused on trying to make an impact. Mark Benson Not just trying to play whatever game needs to be played to like get the next promotion or something like that, but to actually focus on like what makes the consumer's life better or the partner that we're working with and staying unwaveringly focused on that.

[00:22:05] Mark Benson And that has really driven me and guided me in all the steps in my career. Mark Benson And it's something that I don't, I don't ever want to lose sight of. Mark Benson And I talk to our Smart Things team all the time about being just obsessed with like what is the customer experience? Mark Benson Yeah. Mark Benson Have empathy for like what is it? Mark Benson Try it yourself. Mark Benson You make sure in your home you've got a smart thing. Mark Benson Right, put yourself in the shoes of the Westerners, right? Mark Benson Yeah, what does this like for them, you know? Mark Benson And if we lose sight of that, then we lose sight of something really important. Mark Benson That's right. Mark Benson It sounds like passion is really at the heart of your success and what drives you. Mark Benson Yeah, absolutely. Mark Benson Awesome.

[00:22:34] Mark Benson So to wrap up here, is there a quote or mantra that comes to mind that has guided your professional journey to date? Mark Benson Well, number one is stay obsessively focused on the customer. Mark Benson Number two is always remain curious. Mark Benson Yeah. Mark Benson And just, you know, where you don't know, ask a question. Mark Benson If you have an assumption, maybe that assumption is not true, get curious. Mark Benson And that's something I think that's really important for relationships, but also in the development of tech and consumers. Mark Benson And the third one is just collaboration, is that we are better together.

[00:23:04] Mark Benson You know, when diverse ideas come together and when you surround yourself with a team of like really smart people who are focused on the customer and curious and they're collaborating together. Mark Benson There's some really special things that happen. Mark Benson Without a doubt. Mark Benson Well, thank you so much for taking your time during your busy schedule to join us here today during CES. Mark Benson It's been fascinating to hear about your journey and all the great work you're doing at Samsung. Mark Benson Great. Mark Benson Thanks for having me, Matt. Mark Benson On behalf of Susie and every team, thanks again to Mark Benson, the head of Samsung SmartThings US for joining us today live here in Las Vegas at CES.

[00:23:32] Mark Benson Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the Speed of Culture podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Mark Benson Until next time, see you soon, everyone. Mark Benson Take care. Mark Benson The Speed of Culture is brought to you by Susie as part of the Adweek Podcast Network and Agast Creator Network. Mark Benson You can listen and subscribe to all Adweek's podcasts by visiting adweek.com slash podcasts. Mark Benson To find out more about Susie, head to susie.com.

[00:23:56] Mark Benson And make sure to search for the Speed of Culture in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Mark Benson Click Follow so you don't miss out on any future episodes. Mark Benson On behalf of the team here at Susie, thanks for listening.