Seoul City will host Smart Life Week 2026 for three days from October 6 to 8 at COEX in Samseong-dong, Seoul, the city said on the 9th. The theme is “AI for Everyday Life in a Future City.” The event will showcase through exhibitions, hands-on experiences, and conferences how AI, robotics, mobility, and smart healthcare technologies can change urban life and daily living for citizens.
This year’s event is centered on the concept of physical AI. It refers to AI that, unlike chatbot-style systems that only respond on a screen, has a real body like a robot and operates in the physical world, meeting and working with people in real space. Humanoid robots, autonomous driving, AI healthcare, and care services fall under this category.
◆ Expanded exhibition scale
The event will be larger than last year. The exhibition space has expanded by 46 percent. It will occupy the entire first-floor A and B halls of COEX. Seoul City expects about 500 cities and companies from Korea and abroad to participate, with more than 70,000 visitors.
Last year’s event was held at COEX from September 30 to October 2. It drew 130 cities from 71 countries and 330 companies, and about 60,000 people attended. More than 7,000 people took part in 16 conferences and forums. This year, the number of conferences will increase to 18.
Tokyo and Beijing pavilions will also be newly established. These spaces will introduce innovative technologies and smart city policies from major Northeast Asian cities in one place.
◆ Showroom themed around eight Seoul landmarks
The centerpiece of the exhibition will be the “SLW Showroom.” It will recreate future-city scenes in an interactive format using eight representative Seoul landmarks as backdrops: Sejong-daero, Yangjae and Suseo, DDP, Bukchon Hanok Village, Seoul Station, Seoul Library, the Han River, and Gwanghwamun.
In the Sejong-daero zone, visitors will see “Seoul 2126: The Landscape Express,” a work created by Lee Lee-nam Studio and Google Gemini. The video reinterprets traditional landscape painting and Seoul’s scenery through generative AI.
The Yangjae and Suseo zone will focus on physical AI and robots. It will display a life-size mock-up of “Atlas,” the bipedal humanoid robot made by Hyundai Motor and Boston Dynamics, as well as “H2” by Elrobotics. A mock-up is a full-scale model.
In the DDP zone, L&C Future Lab’s AI skin analysis and cosmetics recommendation kiosk, “I’m Type,” will be introduced. The Bukchon Hanok Village zone will focus on AI home living and care. It will feature Creative Mind’s “Interactive AI Piano,” which won an innovation award at CES 2025. The AI analyzes body shape and facial features to compose a piece and play it on the piano. The finished music can be downloaded via QR code.
The Seoul Station zone will be dedicated to future mobility. Visitors can look at autonomous vehicles and urban air mobility (UAM) aircraft and try flight simulators. UAM refers to small aircraft that carry people within cities.
The Seoul Library zone will focus on AI-powered personalized education. It will feature “i-Scream Homenrun” by i-Scream Edu and CIRCULUS’s AI robot “Pibo.”
The Han River zone will address the nighttime economy, safety, and climate. It will showcase Re:Bio’s AI water quality analysis solution, which won a CES 2026 Innovation Award, and Vueron Technology’s LiDAR sensors. LiDAR is a device that measures distance to objects by firing lasers. It serves as the “eyes” of autonomous vehicles. Seoul City’s “Smart Seoul View,” “Real-Time Urban Data,” and “Small Business Safety Bell” will also be presented.
In the Gwanghwamun zone, future administrative services using Google Cloud and AI agent technologies will be demonstrated.
◆ Boston Dynamics founder to deliver keynote
The keynote speech at the opening ceremony on October 6 will be given by Marc Raibert, director of the RAI Institute and founder of Boston Dynamics. The theme is “Physical AI for a People-Centered City: The Future of Everyday Life with Robots.”
Seoul City said Raibert will discuss the current state of robot technology and the technical and cultural challenges of bringing robots into everyday life. He will also cover the development of next-generation robots that combine cognitive and physical capabilities, as well as the changes needed for robots and people to coexist in high-density cities.
The opening ceremony performance will be staged by the percussion performance team TAGO together with robots. The show will combine traditional drum performances with modern dance and robot movements.
The “Seoul AI Robot Show,” which was first introduced last year, will also be expanded. Domestic robotics companies and startups will exhibit humanoid robots, quadrupedal robots, and autonomous robots. The event will cover not only industrial and disaster-safety applications but also robot performances and sports.
◆ Seoul Smart City Awards in their fourth year
The “Seoul Smart City Awards” ceremony will be held on October 6. This is the fourth year of the award, which recognizes smart city policies, projects, and leaders from around the world.
This year, 210 entries were submitted from 133 cities in 56 countries. The total has exceeded 200 entries for four consecutive years. After final judging of 46 entries announced in August, 21 awards will be presented: 16 in the project category, including eight in the people-centered division and eight in the technological innovation division, two in the leadership category, and three special awards.
At last year’s third awards ceremony, the gold award in the people-centered category went to Prague’s “Innovation Management Service,” while the gold award in the technological innovation category went to Dubai’s “AI Food Safety Management System.”
Eighteen conferences will be held, including the “Mayors Forum,” the “Seoul Urban AI Forum,” the “Seoul Big Data Forum,” and the “Physical AI Forum.”
◆ Innovation award chosen by citizen vote
There will also be citizen participation programs. Visitors on site, domestic and foreign buyer evaluation teams, and citizen reporters will vote to select about 10 participating companies’ products and services, and the “SLW Citizen Innovation Award” will be presented on October 8.
There are two business support programs. “PYC (Present for Your City)” is a venue where Korean companies can directly introduce their AI and robot technologies to overseas city markets and senior officials. The newly launched “IR Meetup” this year will support business meetings with domestic and foreign buyers and investors.
Kim Man-gi, chairman of the Seoul AI Foundation, said, “SLW is a place where citizens can directly experience the future city transformed by AI and robots,” adding, “The Seoul AI Foundation will continue expanding cooperation at home and abroad so that innovative technologies can lead to changes in citizens’ daily lives and in the city.”
Jeong Young-jun, director of Seoul’s Digital City Bureau, said, “The competitiveness of future cities depends not on technology itself, but on how much technology changes the lives of cities and their citizens,” adding, “Going forward, Seoul will continue to share the city’s policies, technologies, and corporate innovation with the world through SLW and present new possibilities for future cities.”
Admission is free. Pre-registration is available on the official website until October 5. Those who pre-register can participate in exhibitions, forums, and experience programs.