Samsung’s AI Gamble Isn’t All That Inspiring

You could be forgiven for looking at Samsung’s latest crop of flagship devices in the S25 series and wonder what the silver lining is. It’s all about AI — Galaxy AI, that is — and in doubling down on these features, the company is betting that it has a leg up on what could be the next big thing for mobile devices.

When your devices look more and more alike year after year, yet you still go ahead with the pageantry of a launch event, you have to bring something new to warrant at least a modicum of excitement.

There’s certainly potential in disrupting or changing how people use their smartphones, but it remains to be seen if this is the package they’re looking for. As Samsung stacks up its AI features and credentials, it also risks continuing to stagnate in a few key respects.

Looking at the newest devices firsthand, Samsung reps said very little about hardware changes, photography capabilities improvements, or how overall performance justifies the premium pricing.

By the Numbers

Samsung rarely reveals sales figures for its mobile devices, so much of the relevant data comes from analysts and market research firms. According to them, the Galaxy S24 series outsold the S23 lineup with a strong start in Q1 2024, including cracking the top 10 in Q3 based on Counterpoint Research’s report. Those are encouraging signs for a company that had an otherwise forgettable 2024.

It is hardly a surprise that the company would choose to go a similar route in 2025 with the Galaxy S25 series. The few public statements Samsung has made related to its phone business indicate it sees its Galaxy AI software suite as a major driver. In a category (smartphones) searching for renewed growth, something has to feel “new” for users, whatever it is.

After all, AI is set to play an increasingly important role in Samsung’s varying product lines. From TVs to appliances, on to audio and computing, it sees “generative AI integrated into everyday life.” Just look at the products and experiences it discussed at CES 2025, and you notice a pattern. It slaps a screen on just about any product with room for one while equipping them with AI smarts to boot. Its “Vision AI” strategy for the home centers on the idea that AI isn’t a one-way street; it can go wherever you need. Samsung believes in it so strongly that it’s trying to keep its own Bixby digital assistant alive and kicking through these initiatives. Its phones, tablets, and laptops are all part of this mission.

‘Free’ for Now

For Samsung, the race isn’t to make the most powerful phone or take the greatest photos, it’s to lead the charge in AI development and deployment. Doing that right would theoretically give its mobile devices an edge over competitors. The path, however, is fraught with risk and full of potential pitfalls. Not to mention complacency in other respects.

For starters, Galaxy AI is highly dependent on Google’s own AI infrastructure, be it Gemini or its cloud services. Case in point: Circle to Search is everywhere. Those don’t come free, and certainly not cheap. Hence, Samsung warned as far back as January 2024 that the free ride would eventually hit a paywall by the end of 2025. It didn’t explicitly say “paywall,” but the implication is pretty obvious. These nifty AI-driven features will require a subscription. Whether or not that will apply to all or some of them is a mystery at this point.

Moreover, other Android manufacturers generally have access to the same tools Google makes available. Plus, there’s little to stop it from holding certain things back for its own Pixel devices. The Galaxy S24 series was as much about highlighting Samsung-Google AI collaboration as it was about the phones themselves.

With the Galaxy S25 series, new AI features focus on catching up to others or trying something new. For instance, Best Face is a way to pick the right face for any person in the frame by rolling through a series of selections onscreen. Since the camera takes a live photo, there are multiple frames to choose from. Sound familiar? Sure, because it bears similarities to Best Take on Pixel devices. Audio Eraser is almost the same name since Google calls it Audio Magic Eraser. The idea is the same: remove unwanted background noise from a video.

Others, like Call Record, let you record a phone call (notifying both parties) and get a transcript afterward. Generative AI stickers can now be part of your personalized messaging creativity. The Now Bar is an offshoot of Apple’s Dynamic Island (and more recently, OnePlus’ Live Alerts), which can show contextual information for supporting apps in a bar on the lower part of the screen rather than where the front camera is. That also opens up the Now Brief, an AI-driven daily summary that pulls data from various apps you use.

Some of these new features look useful, but now that a possible paywall looms over them by the end of the year, it’s hard to gauge what Samsung will leave in front or behind it.

Letting it Slip

What is clear, at least to me, is that Samsung benefits from the fact that its most formidable Android competitors aren’t well-known in North America. The likes of Xiaomi, Vivo, and Honor don’t have the visibility or distribution and retail channels Samsung has long built on these shores. That leaves OnePlus in an advantageous position as an outlier. While carriers aren’t selling OnePlus devices, they shouldn’t yield any compatibility issues. The lack of subsidies means you pay full freight to get a OnePlus phone, in most cases. That’s a tough sell for some, but it’s also hard to argue with the value added.

The OnePlus 13 is a stellar device in so many ways because it feels like it’s doing something different. It improves performance, battery life, photography, and the software experience across the board. OxygenOS is still one of the best Android overlays you’ll find. Where it stumbles is that OnePlus only offers four years of Android updates and six years of security updates. Samsung offers seven years’ worth for both.

Not that the Galaxy S25 series is cheap. The Galaxy S25 Ultra starts at $1,300, while the S25+ ($1,000) and S25 ($800) also fall into premium territory. The Ultra is $300 more than the 16GB/512GB variant of the OnePlus 13. Compared to the iPhone 16 Pro, a 256GB variant of that phone is $100 more than the S25+.

When a phone so strongly resembles the previous two generations, it is a good time to cut consumers a break. Hence, the hefty price tag is one way to pay for the AI features Samsung markets so much. It’s even embracing magnetic charging through select cases for the S25 series, effectively making the devices compatible with MagSafe accessories. OnePlus has already made this move with the 13 and 13R and expects other Android manufacturers to follow suit now that Qi2 wireless charging is standard.

Opening the Door for Others

This launch isn’t likely to intimidate anyone competing with Samsung. Even if we concede there’s not much to change on the hardware front, it’s clear the brand isn’t really leading in particular areas. OnePlus and the other Chinese brands are pursuing new ways to capture photos, including action shots — something Samsung continues to ignore. It doesn’t make it easier to share content with iPhone users. It doesn’t lead to battery life in any substantial way. Its S Pen is at the mercy of Wacom, the company behind the stylus’ technology.

Samsung will claim that its AI suite represents the innovation that users are looking for. Maybe, but that’s also what it said last year. Not since the Galaxy S23 series has the hardware felt even the least bit unique or different.

That year, the S23 Ultra carried a holster for the S Pen for the first time and introduced the 200-megapixel image sensor still in the S25 Ultra. A flatter and brighter screen and a newer vapor chamber cooling system made the phone feel different. Surprisingly, it simply didn’t sell as well as the follow-up S24 series, though its hardware changes remain in place for the S25 series.

A Samsung flagship is expensive already, and it may become more expensive once the company rolls out a subscription fee to use its Galaxy AI suite. Selling these features as useful daily tools is one thing, but actually selling them will be another when that conversation starts later this year.