Samsung Electronics this week announced Galaxy S25, a faster, fancier line of AI smartphones, powered by the expanded Galaxy AI software, the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite and Google’s Gemini.
Galaxy S25’s strongest selling point is a breadth of updated AI features, which Samsung hopes will help it leapfrog Apple and other Chinese competitors in the global smartphone market – a competition it lost to Apple last year.
Samsung touts the new Galaxy S25 series as a “true companion” to the users claiming that it brings the “most intuitive and effortless mobile interactions” on Samsung so far.
The Galaxy AI software at the heart of the lineup has been evolved to help users interact with the phone more naturally, while ensuring user privacy, said TM Roh, president of Mobile eXperience at Samsung, in the press release.
Galaxy S25 boasts an upgraded version of Bixby, Samsung’s voice assistant that has footprint across all its portfolio starting with smartphones to appliances and TV.
But the real stars are One UI 7 interface, and Gemini, the phones’ default AI engine, that unlocks a flurry of AI functions including multimodal capabilities to interpret text, speech, image and videos, Google’s latest Circle to Search function for faster contextual search, and an improved response to natural language aimed at making interactions more organic.
To activate Gemini, users need to press and hold the same side button on the phone that brings Bixby to life in order versions.
“While, Samsung continues to emphasize the quality and innovation in hardware, they now put the same into the AI used for on-device assistance,” notes Mitch Ashley, VP and practice lead at the Futurum Group. “The gradual shift from their own Bixby assistant technology to Google Gemini may also increase their adoption with Google Workspace users,” he added.
Samsung has personalized users’ AI experience on the Galaxy S25 series with customized news, calendar and other widgets on the device. The Personal Data Engine on the series ensures that all data is analyzed on the device for max personalization.
Park Ji-sun, the executive vice president called this move a step in the right direction, saying that it will keep the Korean smartphone giant a step ahead in rolling out AI features.
Interestingly, Samsung is circumspect in pitching any hardware updates – and for good reason. The new lineup, besides featuring a customized Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU which it says provides a significant boost in performance – does not pack much else compared to the previous generation.
The performance enhancement promised with the CPU appears largely targeted at making the phones powerful enough to support the suite of on-device AI functions that is its crown jewel.
Pre-orders for all the models of the Galaxy S25 range have started since 22nd January, and they will be available on regular sale starting 7th Feb.
