What's next for Philips Hue? Executive Marco Merolla says AI will change 'the way you can enjoy the system and create beautiful things'

It's been a busy week for the team at Philips Hue.

At its annual showcase event in Berlin, the company unveiled not just a new series of smart lights (including some particularly stylish additions to its Liane series), but also a whole new approach to AI, which it's using to take the complexity out of creating bespoke automated lighting setups specifically for your home.

No more tinkering with toggles and timers — just tell the app what you want your lights to do and when, and the software will handle the rest.

This isn't Philips Hue's first foray into AI.

In 2025, the brand introduced an AI assistant that allowed users to describe a lighting scene and would then either find a match in the library of presets or create a new scene from scratch if nothing suitable existed.

Earlier this year, it also launched SpatialAware for the Philips Hue Bridge Pro , which applies lighting scenes differently depending on the position of smart bulbs, light strips, and lamps in a room, with AI trained using expertise from professional lighting designers.

SpatialAware uses AI trained by lighting designers, and applies scenes based on the location of lights in a room (Image credit: Signify) After this week's showcase, I spoke to Marco Merolla, Executive Vice President and Business Leader of Consumer Connected Lighting at Philips Hue's parent brand Signify, to find out his thoughts on the future of smart lighting and AI.

I started by asking him about SpatialAware, and whether users had welcomed the new feature in their homes.

"It’s something that brings smart lighting to the next level, but also intuitiveness in getting to the result that you want as a user — to the desired ambience," Merolla said.

"The reception of the base was very good in terms of adoption.

This is an exclusive currently with the Bridge Pro, but the reception of the Bridge Pro was extremely good in terms of adoption, and that’s not surprising, because, as we said, ambience creation is key in smart lighting." Did you know TechRadar now has membership? (Image credit: Future) Become a TechRadar Insider by simply clicking 'Join Now' at the top of this page.

Have a question? Please email [email protected] SpatialAware has been a success, but Merolla says the brand has now turned its focus to the custom AI automations demonstrated in Berlin.

"Really, in our perspective, [that is] the next step, because there is a lot that you could do, or may do today that is a bit limited by the system itself," he said.

"By analyzing and assessing the user behavior and the consumer behavior, we create a lot of different layers with which they can create behaviors and automation.