Samsung Electronics' new Galaxy S25 smartphone: 'Perfect AI assistant'

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Last year, Samsung Electronics Co. scored a first-mover advantage with consumers by introducing the Galaxy S24 as an AI smartphone. That paid off with increased sales and consumer awareness.

With the launch of the Galaxy S25 family on Wednesday, the South Korean tech giant took a giant leap by turning its latest smartphone series into a “true AI assistant.”

There's more than just new hardware coming this year, according to Samsung executives. All the Galaxy S25 models, including the premium Galaxy S25 Ultra, usher in a new suite of Galaxy AI tools.

Samsung launched three types of its latest flagship model at the Galaxy Unpacked 2025 event at San Jose's SAP Center: the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S25 Ultra.

With the Galaxy S25 series, Samsung aims to take on Apple, which last year climbed above Samsung to become the world’s top smartphone maker.

At last year’s Galaxy Unpacked, Samsung, a leading smartphone maker and the world’s largest maker of memory chips and TVs, said its Galaxy S24 series is “the world’s first AI phone.”

QUALCOMM’S SNAPDRAGON 8 ELITE FOR ALL S25 MODELS

The Galaxy S25 series features top-tier components.

Samsung said all the Galaxy S25 models are outfitted with the Snapdragon 8 Elite application processor (AP), the brain of a smartphone co-developed with Qualcomm Inc.

This marks a departure from the previous Galaxy S24 series, in which only the highest-end model used a Qualcomm AP, while the two lower models used Samsung's Exynos chip.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite is regarded as the most powerful AP ever developed for Galaxy devices.

Compared with its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the new AP boasts performance improvements of 40%, 37% and 30% to the neural processing unit, central processing unit and graphics processing unit, respectively.

“With the enhanced Galaxy AI, we’re offering the most intuitive AI experience yet, aiming to revolutionize the daily lives of our users,” said TM Roh, president and head of Samsung Mobile Experience (MX) division.

UNIFIED AI FEATURES

Samsung said a key feature of the Galaxy S25 series is its unified AI functionality, which consolidates AI features previously scattered across individual apps.

With its newly designed user interface, One UI 7, Samsung ensured seamless integration between Samsung’s and Google’s AI assistants.

Previously, users had to separately activate Google AI Gemini or Samsung’s Galaxy AI for different apps.

With the Galaxy S25 series, however, users simply press the “AI button” on the device’s right side, and the smartphone automatically activates the most appropriate AI agent for the app the user wants to use.

The unified AI can be utilized across 16 apps, including 14 basic apps from Samsung and Google as well as Spotify and WhatsApp, according to Samsung.

The Circle to Search feature has also evolved to enable users to search not only for images and text but also audio played on the device.

NOW BRIEF, NOW BAR

Samsung said the Galaxy S25 series has elevated AI smartphone capabilities.

One notable new feature, Now Brief, analyzes user data and usage patterns to proactively offer suggestions.

Another new feature is Now Bar, which displays personalized information such as everyday actions and most-used apps, even on a locked screen.

“It’s where you’ll control your entertainment, time your next personal best workout, get directions to your next meeting or start communicating in other languages,” said a Samsung official.

The new Writing Assistant function leverages generative AI to summarize text, check spelling and grammar, and transcribe call content. It even highlights key points from phone calls. The Real-Time Interpreter feature, which provides translation during calls, now supports 20 languages, up from 13, according to Samsung.

When editing videos, users can now utilize the new Audio Eraser function to remove specific voices or background noise.

Despite the rising dollar-won exchange rate, Samsung said prices of the Galaxy S25 series will be in the same range as previous models, effectively offering a price cut.

Samsung will receive pre-orders for the latest smartphones starting on Jan. 24 in Korea and launch in select markets, including Korea, on Feb. 7.

Write to Young Chan Song and Eui-Myung Park at 0full@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.