Key Takeaways
- Galaxy AI will roll out to the Galaxy S23 lineup and foldables, including the Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 with One UI 6.1 update.
- Features include generative editing, live translation, and Google’s Circle to Search.
- Some older Galaxy flagships will miss out on the AI party.
The biggest highlight of Samsung’s new Galaxy S24 lineup is Galaxy AI, a set of generative AI tools that brings features like live translation, generative photo editing, and more. Thankfully, Samsung isn’t restricting the AI magic to its latest phones. If you’re rocking last year’s Galaxy flagship, you’re in luck.
Galaxy AI is Coming to These Samsung Phones
Samsung has set a lofty goal to bring Galaxy AI to 100 million Galaxy devices this year. So far, the company has confirmed that last year’s Galaxy S23 lineup will be among the first to get the AI tools. These include not only the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus, and Galaxy S23 Ultra, but also the more economical flagship Galaxy S23 FE.
The company’s latest foldables, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5, are also slated to receive the AI features. Not just smartphones, Galaxy AI will make its way to a trio of Galaxy tablets: the Galaxy Tab S9, Tab S9 Plus, and Tab S9 Ultra. Galaxy AI will arrive on these devices as part of the upcoming One UI 6.1 update, which is scheduled to roll out starting in March.
What about older flagships such as the Galaxy S22 series and Galaxy Z Fold 4? As confirmed by Samsung’s Head of Customer Experience, Patrick Chomet, the 2022 flagships won’t be getting a taste of Galaxy AI with the One UI 6.1 update. Apparently, getting these AI features on the Galaxy S24 lineup “was so much work” for Samsung, and the priority right now is to go step-by-step and assess how the intensity of AI usage will impact device resources and cloud resources.
What Do You Get With Galaxy AI?
Galaxy AI brings several cool generative AI features to help you edit photos and videos, translate calls and text messages, summarize notes and web pages, and more. Samsung is taking a hybrid approach, with some of the features leveraging on-device processing, while others relying on cloud processing.
Here’s a quick run-down of all the Galaxy AI features coming to the Galaxy S23 series, Galaxy S23 FE, Galaxy Z Fold 5, Galaxy Z Flip 5, and Galaxy Tab S9 series. Samsung notes that some AI features from the Galaxy S24 series may not make their way to the older models but wouldn’t clarify which ones.
- Chat Assist: This lets you adjust your writing style and tone when composing texts and emails. It also automatically translates messages in 13 different languages.
- Live Translate: The feature is part of the default Samsung Phone app and provides real-time voice and text translation for phone calls. It only works with the default dialer app.
- Interpreter: Lets you converse with someone who speaks a foreign language. The phone displays real-time text translations for both speakers on a split-screen interface.
- Transcript Assist: This feature is part of the Samsung Voice Recorder app. It lets you transcribe your voice recordings, complete with AI-generated summaries and translations.
- Generative Edit: You can reposition, realign, or remove objects in a photo, and the Generative Edit feature will recreate the image that doesn’t show any artifacts. It can also fill in the missing details for cutoff objects.
- Edit Suggestion: AI-powered auto suggestions let you quickly polish up your photos.
- Instant Slow-mo: This feature lets you turn your standard videos into slow-motion videos by adding AI-generated frames. (It’s not coming to the Galaxy S23 FE).
- Circle to Search: This one is a lot like Google Lens. You draw a circle around something you want to Google and get contextual search results on the screen.
- Note Assist: Helps you better organize your notes with auto-formatting, summaries, translation, and thumbnail icons. The feature only works in the Samsung Notes app.
- Browsing Assist: Lets you generate condensed summaries of web articles when browsing with Samsung Internet.
Galaxy AI features won’t be free forever. Samsung says it plans to provide these features for free until the end of 2025, after which some of them might move behind a paywall. Nothing is set in stone just yet, but the price of running generative AI is high, and if enough people start leveraging these features, it can become a financial burden.
