Very few telco operators have talked up ambitions to launch an own-branded AI phone, so this announcement by Deutsche Telekom is an attention-grabber.

Working with partner Perplexity AI, Deutsche Telekom’s AI phone with ‘Magenta AI’ will add a hardware element to Telekom’s progressing, consumer customer-centric generative AI (GenAI) deployment, and further integrate Perplexity AI functionality within the broader Deutsche Telekom MeinMagenta ecare app-based user experience.

That functionality promises to encompass assistance for a range of day-to-day activities beyond just conversational search and Q&A: from placing orders and making reservations to real-time translation and text summary, making calendar entries, and composing email and creating podcasts.

These capabilities reflect the kind of all-around, co-piloting support offered by the free Perplexity Assistant app launched for Google Android devices earlier in 2025.

An exploitable advantage for Deutsche Telekom

Google Cloud AI, ElevenLabs, and Picsart will add further dimensionality to ‘Magenta AI’ as an all-in-one ecare helper and virtual major-domo, and it is in this arena where the most exploitable advantage lies for Deutsche Telekom.

The AI phone will launch first in the home market of Germany sometime in H2 2025, followed by other European Deutsche Telekom-footprint markets. There is no clear path to extending it to the US, but likely subsidiary T-Mobile US will apply the same logic together with its ‘T-Life’ application, added generational AI features and assistance tools, to play to its own strengths in that domain.

An affordable device

The prototype for the AI phone in Europe is the T-Mobile Revvl or so-called ‘Telekom T-Phone,’ a long-standing own-branded staple in the Deutsche Telekom device portfolio, both in Europe and in the US, and now in its sixth edition.

Like the existing Telekom T-Phone, the coming AI phone will also be priced within the “affordable device” category and is equally likely to be bundled together with contract mobile plans for as little as €1 one-time hardware price, as is currently the practice in key European markets.

The future AI phone’s key selling point is ‘Magenta AI’ integration – customers can access the assistance features from the lockscreen and power button.

However, other customers will be able to access the same Magenta AI features without hardware integration by downloading the Deutsche Telekom MeinMagenta app to any smartphone.