Luxury smartphone brand Vertu on Thursday unveiled a foldable phone powered by an artificial intelligence agent that connects with business software and coordinates workflows. The company targets executives who manage business operations and communications on the go.
Called Alphafold, the foldable smartphone starts at $6,880 for the calfskin version. High-end models feature custom finishes including crocodile skin, 18K gold and natural diamond accents, as well as custom accents. This continues Vertu’s long-standing strategy of positioning its phones as luxury status symbols aimed at wealthy buyers. The company told TechCrunch that its highest-end standard model is currently priced at $46,800, with more customization options available.
The launch marks Vertu’s latest attempt to reinvent itself for the AI era after struggling to remain relevant in the modern smartphone market. The Hong Kong-based company once known for its luxury phones and concierge services popular with wealthy buyers before the rise of the iPhone, has changed ownership several times over the years, as major smartphone manufacturers came to dominate the industry. However, 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 Nous Research’s open source Hermes project. The agent can connect to enterprise systems such as ERP and CRM and coordinate tasks such as approvals, scheduling, sales tracking, travel planning, and operational reporting through natural language prompts. However, the company said its phone-to-ERP and VPS implementations would be customized for each customer depending on their existing business systems, and prices would vary accordingly.
Alphafold, Vertu said, can route requests through 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 features for cross-platform workflows.
Existing AI features in smartphones from major manufacturers remain largely focused on consumer tools such as image editing and voice assistance, said Molly Ma, CEO of Vertu. This leaves room for more advanced AI agent workflows tied to enterprise systems. He also pointed to previous smartphone experiments with AI agents in China that gained popularity before facing data privacy challenges and cloud-based data collection.
Ma said Alphafold aims to address those concerns through a privacy-focused architecture that includes a proprietary A5 security chip. This silicon is designed to isolate authentication keys, biometric credentials and sensitive business information from the core operating system, the company said. It added that commercially sensitive data can be processed locally on the device, while prompts sent to external AI models are redacted or tokenized before leaving the phone.
While Vertu has emphasized the device’s privacy and security architecture, including on-device processing and data redaction features, the company said the system has not yet undergone third-party security audits or independent certification. However, Vertu told TechCrunch that independent audits and certifications remain on its security roadmap “as an explicit next-stage commitment,” adding that it would “publicly communicate progress and results” once the product matures further.
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 outer display, a 6,500 mAh battery, and satellite communication capabilities. The device also includes a triple rear camera setup with 50-megapixel primary and ultrawide cameras, as well as a 5-megapixel telephoto lens. Vertu said the phone’s hinge uses metal, titanium and carbon fiber components and has a capacity of up to 650,000 folds.
The Alphafold is not Vertu’s first attempt at combining AI with foldable devices. The company last year. introduced Agent Qa clamshell-style foldable smartphone focused on AI-powered automation and productivity features.
However, Ma told TechCrunch that Alphafold represents a significant step forward over Agent Q, arguing that AI agent technology has matured rapidly over the past year, with improvements in memory, automation and application integration.
Foldable smartphones remain a niche segment globally despite years of investment by major manufacturers including Samsung and Huawei. Up to 20 million foldable smartphones were shipped globally in 2025, representing less than 2% of total smartphone shipments, according to IDC data shared with TechCrunch. The research firm said foldable phones sold at an average price of about $1,300 last year, about three times the price of non-foldable smartphones.
Kiranjeet Kaur, associate director of mobile phone research at IDC, said foldable devices could eventually benefit from AI agent workflows because their larger screens are better suited for multitasking and productivity-oriented experiences. However, he added that enterprise adoption of AI in smartphones still lags behind computers, and that most enterprise decisions about smartphones are still driven by ecosystem integration and device management support rather than AI capabilities.
The first batch of 115 units of Vertu’s Alphafold begins shipping this week to major markets, including the US.
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