Samsung’s latest splash into the artificial intelligence (AI) smartphone market not only presents a deeper integration into the Galaxy product line but a potential headache for heavyweight rival Apple Inc.
AI is tightly woven into the operating system of all three new Galaxy S25 phones for tasks that let users string together multiple actions with a single voice command, or the ability to interact with different apps on one’s behalf via AI agents. In essence, voice command is the core interface now. The agentic AI announced with S25 is a collaboration between Samsung’s own on-Device AI and Google Gemini, and much of the agentic actions take place on-Device.
Samsung’s approach with the Galaxy S25 series, announced Wednesday, builds off its inaugural Galaxy AI launch a year ago. Hardware is at the core of the new agentic capabilities, and remains crucial to Samsung’s AI strategy. Samsung and Qualcomm Inc. teamed on creating a custom security operations center (SOC) for Samsung, Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy. Additionally, significant hardware improvements from the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy bring massive performance improvements to camera, gaming and other features.
Samsung’s approach to agentic AI training is also unique. It has created a secure data sink inside the device, protected by Knox security. All user data used to train the agent remains on device, and does not go to the cloud, ensuring 100% privacy and data security. “It is literally having agentic AI in your phone,” Olivier Blanchard, who covers devices for The Futurum Group, said in an interview.
The aforementioned features raise the competitive ante with Apple Intelligence – a suite of AI features available on iPhone, iPad and Macs, that are being slowly rolled out – much to the chagrin of Wall Street and consumers.
Samsung continues to develop “highly innovative hardware” while super-charging its AI assistant software features, Mitch Ashley, vice president and practice lead, DevOps and AppDev, at The Futurum Group, said in an interview.
For now, Samsung has a major leg up in its heavyweight tussle with Apple. The company says the Galaxy S25 series’ AI tools will be available when the phones become generally available Feb. 7. Conversely, Apple intends to roll out specific Apple Intelligence features in phases through software updates, with a major release expected in June at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
“Apple kind of missed it with AI. They had focused on its existing products instead,” Blanchard said. Though Apple has quickly pivoted to Apple Intelligence, he said, the current iteration is “mainly branding and supported by OpenAI and other AI infrastructure. I am sure it will become more Apple native and even more useful.”
Indeed, Samsung’s heavy AI smartphone comes at a particularly vulnerable time for iPhone.
This month, market researcher IDC reported Apple’s fourth-quarter global handset sales fell 4.1% from the year-ago period to 76.9 million units amid concerns over iPhone demand, the pace of its Apple Intelligence AI rollout, and stiffer competition for smartphones sales in China.
Apple did maintain its status as the world’s biggest smartphone seller, with an estimated 18.7% share of the global market, barely ahead of Samsung’s 18%, IDC said. But its lead is shrinking as the worldwide market for AI-powered smartphones are ready to take off.
By 2028, global shipments of generative AI smartphones will hit 912 million units, with a compound annual growth rate of 78% between 2024 and 2028, according to IDC.
Whether Samsung’s AI play is enough to topple Apple from its perch or peel away a significant number of users is an ongoing debate in tech circles. Financial and industry analysts generally agree Apple will eventually establish itself as a crucial AI player as more features become available in the coming months.
“We anticipate market sentiment to improve mid-year, which is a seasonally strong period for the stock, as concerns about Apple Intelligence’s limited impact on iPhone demand and competition in China are replaced by optimism over the new slate of Apple Intelligence features revealed at WWDC 2025, the launch of new Mac, iPad, and iPhone SE products in Spring 2025, and potential new features for the iPhone 17/18 in Fall 2025/26,” Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Ng wrote in a note Thursday following Samsung’s announcement.
“Apple has a pretty famously captive buyer base, not just in consumer markets but for business use as well. It has beat its own drum since [late co-founder] Steve Jobs returned to the helm in 1997 and been able to claim innovation on multiple fronts when in fact it has imitated and followed other vendors — Samsung especially,” Guy Currier, vice president and chief technology officer of Visible Impact, said in an email.
“The key for Apple has been excellence and value rather than timeliness in its feature roll-outs, and Apple Intelligence is a preeminent example of this. For all these reasons, I think the Galaxy 25 exerts very little real market pressure — few switches from Apple to Samsung — and no corporate pressure within Apple at all,” he said.
Still, a slice of iPhone users say they are increasingly tempted by Samsung’s evolving smartphone offerings, both hardware and AI.
“Samsung’s innovation on form factor with Fold and its continued focus on bringing the most innovative and cutting-edge technology devices to its offerings is making this long-standing (since iPhone 3) user consider switching,” Steven Dickens, CEO, said in an email.
