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Samsung is betting on AI to reclaim the smartphone market top spot from Apple. And it’s all thanks to Galaxy AI, a collection of business-friendly artificial intelligence features coming to the new S24 range. Highlights include real-time two-way translation on phone calls, built-in transcription and instant summaries of meeting notes. Who wouldn’t be tempted?
The Korean giant showed off these features at a glamorous launch event in San Jose. Alongside the latest S24 flagship phones, it also teased a mysterious smart ring health tracker that monitors your activity and vital signs from your finger.
Samsung’s flagship line-up consists of the 6.2in Galaxy S24, 6.7in Galaxy S24 Plus and 6.8in Galaxy S24 Ultra. They’re available to pre-order now, giving Samsung a chance to overtake Apple before the next iPhone launches later in the year.
Galaxy AI is built into all the new S24 phones, but Samsung says it will also come to existing Galaxy devices.
Samsung Galaxy AI works across your apps to help you find information, improve your messages, enhance your images and much more. There’s some crossover between the Samsung features and features available on other Android devices, because Galaxy AI is powered by Google’s Gemini and Imagen AI tools.
Galaxy AI uses both on-device and cloud-based AI, so your phone can do some tasks without sending data elsewhere and waiting for a response. That speeds things up, but it’s also important for security as it means you aren’t giving personal or professional information to a third party.
However, even with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset inside the S24 phones, some AI tasks require more power than a device can muster and could require you to turn to cloud-based processing.
Here’s a look at the new features of Galaxy AI. And while they’re aimed at consumers, we think most are handy for business users too.
Live Translate provides real-time translation of a spoken language, which could be huge for global businesses. Call someone on the phone and even though you’re both speaking different languages, you’ll both hear each others’ words near-instantly translated into something you can understand. This translation happens on-device, so it doesn’t reveal your conversation outside of the two people speaking.
If you want more information on something you see in any app on your phone, you currently have to open Google search and type it in. Too much of a pain? Fear not, as the new Circle to Search feature means that all you have to do is draw a circle with your finger around the text or image that you’re interested in. You then get Google search results on top of the app, which you can read and then click away to go back to what you were doing.
You launch Circle to Search by long-pressing the home button, which usually launches Google voice assistant. It’s worth noting that this feature isn’t limited to Samsung devices, as Google will make it available on other high-end Android devices such as the Pixel 8.
Choose the perfect wording for an email, text message or social media post with this ChatGPT-style generative AI feature. It suggests different versions of your message in a range of tones of voice from casual to formal.
Galaxy AI transcribes your voice notes into text in the Samsung Notes app, presenting your thoughts as plain text or bullet points. It can even summarise your ramblings.
Make use of image-based generative AI to modify your photos by tapping or circling on parts of the picture. Samsung Galaxy AI then automatically cuts out a person or element of the picture so you can move them, resize or delete them completely. You can also expand images so the AI fills in a new background around the edge of the original shot – useful if you want to reframe an image where the subject is off-centre, for example, or for turning a picture from portrait to landscape.
Google also announced new features coming to Samsung and other Android devices. Among the improved features for Android Auto, which connects your phone to your car, is an AI option to summarise messages and busy group chats so you get the important stuff without distracting you from your driving.
Related: Why businesses should take note of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5
