Glance AI, a brand owned by mobile advertising company InMobi, has announced a partnership with the Samsung Galaxy Store to roll out its e-commerce platform on Galaxy phones in the US. The company’s application centers on what it calls an “artificial intelligence generative commerce platform,” which is a serious contender for the title of the most cursed phrase I’ve read today. The “experience” includes both the standalone app and the lock screen component that tries to sell you clothes. What’s important is that it’s all “fully consensual,” which, thank goodness, is not a problem. But even if you do opt out – and you should definitely do so – this looks like a sign of things to come as advertisers try to use AI to sell us more products. Fasten your seatbelts.
You may remember InMobi as the company that ruined Motorola’s decent budget phones with a bunch of e-commerce nonsense. The version that Galaxy owners may see centers on a feature that uses general artificial intelligence and your photo to create images of you in different outfits, with new “looks” available daily. Unsurprisingly, you will be able to buy clothes with a single touch. All of this can happen on the lock screen, and for some reason, you may want to save these AI creations as your lock screen wallpaper. I won’t do that.
The functions of the Glance AI lock screen vary by region: in India, where InMobi was founded, the Glance lock screen shows ads in addition to things like news updates and sports scores. The implementation on Samsung phones doesn’t seem to include ads, thankfully, at least for now. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely going to throw my phone into the sea the first time I see an ad on the lock screen, so I hope that never happens.
Glance AI is rolling out to Samsung Galaxy S22, S23, S24, and S25 phones starting today and should reach “full 100% scale” within the next 30 days. Presumably, when it does, the feature will be available for download in the Galaxy Store, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes with a push notification to encourage users to download it.
