Luxury smartphone brand Vertu on Thursday unveiled a foldable phone powered by an artificial intelligence agent that communicates with corporate software and coordinates workflows. The company targets executives who manage business operations and communications on the go.
The calfskin version of the foldable smartphone, called the Alphafold, starts at $6,880. Higher-end models feature bespoke finishes including crocodile leather, 18K gold and natural diamond accents and custom details. This continues Vertu’s long-standing strategy of positioning its phones as luxury status symbols aimed at affluent buyers. The company told TechCrunch that its top-of-the-line standard model is currently priced at $46,800, with additional customization options available.
The launch marks Vertu’s attempt to reinvent itself for the age of AI after struggling to stay relevant in the modern smartphone market. A company headquartered in Hong Kong, once known for luxury phones and there are concierge services popular with affluent shoppers before the rise of the iPhone changed ownership many times Over the years, major smartphone manufacturers have come to dominate the industry. Nevertheless, Vertu is betting that Alphafold can help reinvent the brand for the AI era by combining luxury hardware with enterprise-focused AI capabilities.
Vertu’s Alphafold comes with Hermes Agent, built on top of the open source Hermes project by Nous Research. An agent can connect to enterprise systems such as ERP and CRM and coordinate tasks such as approvals, scheduling, sales tracking, travel planning and transaction reporting through natural language prompts. However, the company said its Phone-to-ERP and VPS deployments will be customized for each customer depending on their existing enterprise systems, and pricing will vary accordingly.
Vertu said Alphafold can route queries across multiple AI models, including OpenAI’s GPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini and select open-source models, while integrating with more than 80 apps and dozens of native phone functions for cross-platform workflows.
Molly Ma, CEO of Vertu, said that existing AI features in major manufacturers’ smartphones are mainly focused on consumer tools such as image editing and voice assistance. This makes room for more advanced AI-agent workflows connected to enterprise systems. He also pointed to earlier AI-agent smartphone experiments in China has gained popularity before facing data privacy issues and cloud-based data collection.
Alphafold aims to address these concerns through a privacy-focused architecture with a proprietary A5 security chip, Ma said. The company said this silicon is designed to isolate authentication keys, biometric credentials and sensitive enterprise data from the underlying operating system. He added that commercially sensitive data can be processed locally on the device, with instructions sent to external AI models edited or flagged before leaving the phone.
While Vertu highlighted the device’s privacy and security architecture, including on-device processing and data editing features, the company said the system has yet to undergo third-party security audits or independent certification. However, Vertu told TechCrunch that independent auditing and certification remains “an open commitment for the next phase” in its security roadmap, adding that it will “publicly disclose progress and results” once the product is more mature.
The Alphafold is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor and features an 8.05-inch foldable display, along with a 6.53-inch external screen, a 6,500mAh battery, and satellite connectivity capabilities. The device also includes a triple rear camera with a 50-megapixel primary and ultra-wide camera, as well as a 5-megapixel telephoto lens. Vertu said the phone’s hinge uses metal, titanium and carbon fiber components and is rated for up to 650,000 folds.
Alphafold isn’t Vertu’s first attempt at combining foldable devices with artificial intelligence. The company last year Agent Q introduceda clamshell foldable smartphone focused on AI-driven automation and productivity features.
However, Ma told TechCrunch that Alphafold represents a significant step forward from Agent Q, arguing that AI-agent technology has grown rapidly over the past year with improvements in memory, automation and application integration.
Foldable smartphones remain a niche segment globally, despite years of investment from major manufacturers including Samsung and Huawei. According to IDC data shared with TechCrunch, 20 million foldable smartphones will be shipped globally in 2025, representing less than 2% of total smartphone shipments. The research firm said foldable devices sold for about $1,300 on average last year, nearly three times the price of non-foldable smartphones.
Kiranjeet Kaur, associate research director for mobile research at IDC, said foldable devices could eventually benefit AI agent workflows because their larger displays are better suited for multitasking and productivity-focused experiences. However, he added that enterprise AI adoption on smartphones still lags behind PCs, and most enterprise smartphone decisions continue to be driven by ecosystem integration and device management support rather than AI capabilities.
The first 115-unit batch of Vertu’s Alphafold begins shipping to major markets, including the US, this week.
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