Samsung Embeds Google’s AI Tech In S24 Smartphones

Samsung Electronics at its Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event has unveiled its new portfolio of flagship smartphones.

Samsung announced on Wednesday its new handsets, namely the Galaxy S24, S24 Plus and S24 Ultra series that “leads the way into a new era that will forever change how mobile devices empower users.”

The big announcement was that Samsung is deploying Google’s generative artificial intelligence technology in its Galaxy S24 series smartphones, which it is calling ‘Galaxy AI’.

Galaxy AI

Under the multi-year deal, Samsung’s flagship S24 series will use in-built Gemini Nano, Google’s most-efficient large-language model, and get cloud access to Gemini Pro and Imagen 2 text-to-image tech.

Samsung said that “AI amplifies nearly every experience on Galaxy S24 series, from enabling barrier-free communication with intelligent text and call translations, to maximising creative freedom with Galaxy’s ProVisual Engine, to setting a new standard for search that will change how Galaxy users discover the world around them.”

“The Galaxy S24 series transforms our connection with the world and ignites the next decade of mobile innovation,” said TM Roh, President and Head of Mobile eXperience (MX) Business at Samsung Electronics.

“Galaxy AI is built on our innovation heritage and deep understanding of how people use their phones,” said Roh. “We’re excited to see how our users around the world empower their everyday lives with Galaxy AI to open up new possibilities.”

Among the examples of the AI tech in the new handsets is ‘Live Translate’, which allows two-way, real-time voice and text translations of phone calls within the native app.

Meanwhile ‘Interpreter‘ is a live conversation that can be instantly translated on a split-screen view so people standing opposite each other can read a text transcription of what the other person has said. It works without cellular data or Wi-Fi.

Another example is for messages and other apps, where ‘Chat Assist‘ can help conversational tones to ensure communication sounds as it was intended: such as a polite message to a coworker or a short and catchy phrase for a social media caption.

In the car, ‘Android Auto‘ will automatically summarise incoming messages and suggest relevant replies and actions.

For voice recordings, when there are multiple speakers, ‘Transcript Assist‘ uses AI and Speech-to-Text technology to transcribe, summarise and even translate recordings.

And then there is a gesture-driven ‘Circle to Search‘ with Google. This gives Galaxy users a new tool that opens up new forms of search with a simple gesture. With a long press on the home button, users can circle, highlight, scribble on or tap anything on Galaxy S24’s screen to see helpful, high-quality search results.

The arrival of the new handsets as Samsung in Q4 2023 lost market share to Apple and Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi and Transsion, with global shipments (according to IDC) falling to 53 million units from nearly 60 million a year earlier.

Big shift

The arrival of the Samsung Galaxy S24, S24 Plus and S24 Ultra, and the deployment of ‘Galaxy AI’, was noted by Forrester VP principal analyst Thomas Husson.

“Samsung has announced its new range of AI-powered Galaxy S24 flagship smartphones claiming a new era for mobile is opening up. Really? Well, not quite yet,” said Husson.

“In the future, I believe AI will enable our smartphones to become our sixth sense. Coupled with sensors and branded ecosystem approaches, they will anticipate our needs and deliver more contextual, invisible and immersive experiences,” said Husson. “With a personal AI assistant in your pocket, the way we interact with technology and brands will change. This will represent quite a big shift from Samsung’s initial attempt of creating a virtual assistant with Bixby a few years ago.”

“While AI is already embedded within smartphones, GenAI combined with other technology innovation opens up new opportunities and will turn this vision into a reality,” said Husson. “That said, by leveraging the AI hype, Samsung is smartly communicating on new features such as real-time translation of calls, boosted AI camera and photo editing tools integrated with social media apps, and generating images based on text prompts.”

“There is a great opportunity to deliver new experiences now that GenAI is seeping into consumers’ lives,” Husson concluded. “Boosted performance of the new devices will help Samsung exploit its 9-month window of opportunity to take leadership in the premium smartphone market before the launch of Apple’s iPhone 16.”