Samsung’s newly launched Galaxy S24 series trio has more of Google inside than you’d think. Not because they are Android phones, that’s there, but going beyond the obvious, these new phones — the S24, S24 Plus, and S24 Ultra — are loaded with local and cloud-based AI features, some eerily similar to what Google also offers on its Pixel 8 line-up.
There’s good reason for that because Samsung is using Google’s Gemini Pro and Imagen 2 on Vertex AI to power at least some (if not all) of its cloud-based Generative AI features. And for on-device tasks, it is using Gemini Nano. The difference is, Samsung takes all this and distributes it evenly across the entire line-up (while with Google, you need to buy the pricier Pixel 8 Pro to get everything).
But coming back to how “Google tech” makes things smarter, on the S24, S24 Plus, and the S24 Ultra, Gemini Pro will allow native Samsung applications like Notes, Voice Recorder, and Keyboard to summarise text while Imagen 2 will power Generative Edit, a Magic Eraser-like feature that lets you move and remove objects as well as fill in empty spaces in photos using AI.
Elsewhere, the Galaxy S24 series phones are getting the first dibs at Google’s Circle to Search, a feature that lets you search for ANYTHING by simply long-pressing on the home button and drawing a circle around it even when you’re inside an app (or outside of it).
Live Translate was teased last year and it’s here right on schedule letting you get audio and text translations during phone calls in real time. At launch, it supports 13 languages, Hindi included. Additionally, AI can set the tonality of your text to make them seem more casual or professional, depending on the situation you’re in. Since it’s embedded inside the native Keyboard app, it should work across any chat app. Also, the Recorder app gives you live transcriptions with speaker labels. And it can translate these transcriptions into another language.
Most of these features, especially those that tap into the cloud, will require Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, Galaxy S24 Ultra users to have a Samsung account log in and an internet connection to work. Much like Google, so that’s not changing either (even though you’d expect the latest Qualcomm chip that’s all gung-ho about AI, would be up to the task, but apparently it’s not).
Outside of the purview of specs and features, another thing that Samsung is borrowing from Google is extended software support. The Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24 Ultra, will receive up to seven years of software updates (up from four years previously) like the Pixel 8 series devices. It remains to be seen if Samsung will extend this strategy to other devices, like last year’s Galaxy S23 series and Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Flip 5, but you don’t have to buy the Galaxy S24 series to try out its new Galaxy AI features at least. Samsung has confirmed, in time, they’ll arrive on last year’s flagships, too.
Follow FE Tech Bytes on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.
