Deutsche Telekom (DT) revealed it would be building a low-cost “AI Phone,” in collaboration with AI company Perplexity and others, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona 2025 which kicked off on March 3.
The German telecommunications company also noted it is creating a new AI assistant app called “Magenta AI.” Although DT plans to reveal the actual price of the device in the second half of the year, it has plans to start selling the new mobile device in 2026 at a price of less than $1,000 while initially targeting the European market.
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“We are becoming an AI company,” said Claudia Nemat, a DT board member who oversees tech and innovation at the telecom. She clarified that DT is not building large language models, only AI agents.
Perplexity, a startup out of Silicon Valley currently valued at $9 billion, is a major player in this.
“Perplexity is transitioning from just being an answer machine to an action machine,” Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity’s co-founder and CEO, said during the event. “It is going to start doing things for you, not just answering questions. It’s going to be able to book flights for you, book reservations for you, send emails for you, send messages, place phone calls for you, and all those sorts of things, like set smart reminders.”
While this seems to be the first time the company is partnering with a carrier to develop an interface for a smartphone, it already has experience with assistants, having recently launched an assistant that could provide a template for the AI phone. Perplexity has also announced a partnership with Bouygues Telecom, to expand in France.
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While there isn’t much information given on the AI phone device specifications or hardware, Nemat did mention it would have AI “baked in.” Nemat mentioned there would be “AI on your lock screen.” Other services on the phone would include AI from Google Cloud, ElevenLabs, and Picsart, DT said.
Magenta AI, which will be an app-based version of DT’s AI assistant, will be available for those who want to install it on their own Android or iOS devices for DT’s customers.