Deutsche Telekom releases $200 AI phone

Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies, is launching a set of “AI for everyone” devices powered by Perplexity.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become somewhat of a buzzword since the release of the pioneering AI chatbot, ChatGPT, in 2022.

Since then, businesses and corporations alike have been racing to release the latest and most effective AI models, AI-powered devices, and chatbots.

While we’ve seen some successful products and some failures, many companies still want to show that they’re a part of the race. Deutsche Telekom is no different.

The telecommunications company, which was dubbed the “most valuable German brand of all time” in 2024, is releasing its first set of devices powered by Perplexity.

Perplexity is a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence, similar to competitors like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude.

Deutsche Telekom claims to “open the door to the world of artificial intelligence for its customers,” making AI accessible to everyone – not just tech nerds or enthusiasts.

While companies like OpenAI have already democratized AI by creating user-friendly interfaces and employing simple, sycophantic personalities for its chatbots, Deutsche Telekom seems to think it’s doing something revolutionary.

Instead, Deutsche Telekom is just launching its own AI-powered phone, which has already been done by the likes of Apple and Google, which have recently polluted their devices with useless AI features.

But how is Deutsche Telekom going to keep up with the competition? Well, its AI-powered devices come “at a unique price,” starting from €149 ($200).

This is considerably cheaper than Apple or Google’s $1000 devices, which feature the latest AI “upgrades.”

Furthermore, Deutsche Telekom says that this “multitalented AI assistant” can provide information on demand, on-screen content, and augmented reality experiences with objects in front of the camera.

“Just double-click the power key or press the magenta button near the bottom center of the lockscreen, and the assistant is at your service,” said Deutsche Telekom. Users can also apparently ask Perplexity questions via voice or by typing.

The price of the AI phone in Germany is €149 ($200), and the AI tablet is €199 ($230), but these products are also being launched in Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Greece, Hungary, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, and Slovakia.

Also, the telecommunications giant is offering users access to Magenta AI, which includes a suite of tools for all customers, even those who don’t want to buy a new device.

“The ‘Magenta AI’ button in MeinMagenta-App brings users to Perplexity's answer engine, with the next feature coming soon.”

However, the name Magenta has recently been tainted after Cybernews discovered a massive leak.

Is Deutsche Telekom secure?

Certain facets of Deutsche Telekom, including MagentaTV and T-Mobile, have suffered major data leaks affecting millions of users.

The Cybernews research team uncovered the leak in mid-June this year after discovering an unprotected Elasticsearch instance hosted by Serverside.ai, a server‑side ad insertion (SSAI) platform.

According to the team, all the data on the exposed instance originated from MagentaTV, a video streaming aggregator platform owned by Deutsche Telekom (DT).

While third-party sources estimate that MagentaTV has a user base of 4.4 million individuals, the exposed instance held over 324 million log entries, which amounted to a whopping 729GB of data.

While not all of the data involved in the leak was sensitive, some user data was exposed, including IP addresses, MAC addresses, session IDs, customer IDs, and user agents.

In other Deutsche Telekom-related news, T-Mobile, which is owned by the German telecom, was claimed by hackers who allegedly stole 64 million T-Mobile records containing highly sensitive information.

Attackers shared the wireless carrier’s details on a popular data leak forum, alleging that all 64 million lines of information are as recent as June 1st, 2025.

The information involved includes full names, dates of birth, tax IDs, full addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, device IDs, cookie IDs, and IP addresses.