Galaxy AI: Samsung’s Commitment to the Next Big Thing

Finally, after being bombarded by countless Galaxy AI ads and teaser posts on social media over the past week, the Galaxy AI is now officially announced by Samsung. This marks a new chapter in the smartphone industry as our pocket-friendly mobile phone enters the artificial intelligence era.

“You guys will not be disappointed”

Steve Chan, Senior Product Manager (Samsung Electronics Malaysia)

In case you missed our previous editorial about Galaxy AI, we have discussed how Samsung aims to provide a whole new user experience to their customers by empowering our available devices with the marvel of AI. While Steve Chan, Senior Product Manager at Samsung Electronics Malaysia (SME) could not share with us the details back in December last year, what he had promised is – we will not be disappointed. Today, Samsung has demonstrated its very first generation of Galaxy AI during the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S24 series. I must say, I am impressed.

Let’s break down the details.

AI Photography & Editing Plays an Important Role

Computational photography has been part of our lives ever since smartphone photography became mainstream. The moment you press the shutter button, the device starts to process all the raw data collected from the camera sensor and enhances the image. The same process is happening on the new Galaxy S24 series. The S24 Ultra even received a brand-new 50MP 5x zoom camera that strikes the perfect balance between the 3x and 10x camera found on the S23 Ultra. The result is a much more versatile camera that still supports taking 10x zoom photos by digitally cropping on the 5x sensor.

Hardware aside, what Galaxy AI has brought to the table is a feature set that enables endless possibilities for creators. Built right into the gallery app is the AI-powered suggestive editing feature. Based on the photo, it will not just suggest editing such as reflection removal or shadow removal, it can even do generative filling just like how we did on Adobe Photoshop!

This is the kind of feature that we, power users, have been looking for on a mobile device. As much as I love to edit on a computer, there are times we just want to quickly whip up something from the phone. It can be extremely frustrating when the device is limiting your creativity. Now? It is no longer a concern with such a powerful tool on our hands.

Besides, Samsung has been respectful of the image post-processing etiquette that each AI-editing image will be watermarked and tagged in the metadata.

Galaxy AI x Google Gemini

Samsung has no intention of building yet another OpenAI ChatGPT or Google Gemini’s Bard. They are open to collaboration and even encourage cross-platform development of AI features. This can be seen with the cooperation with Google on the Circle to Search feature.

By holding the home button, it will trigger the image recognition process for whatever is being shown on the screen. By simply circling the subject, Google will immediately conduct an image-based search without needing to take screenshots. This feature works on ANY app as long as you can long-press the home button. It even works with camera preview as you don’t need to take pictures and manually search.

Breaking the Language Barrier

Even though digital text translation has been around for decades (Babelfish, anyone?), developers around the world are still working non-stop to improve the translation quality through context and dynamic response that fully replicates how a human would understand.

This is what Galaxy AI is trying to solve with the feature built into the Samsung Phone app. Users can speak their native language while the AI performs real-time translation that also provides a written transcript of the phone call. This is pretty darn impressive especially since it only relies on the pre-downloaded language pack as well as the onboard NPU chip. You don’t even need to have internet to get this feature to work.

The live demonstration showcased how an English tourist was able to place a tablet reserve over with a Korean speaking waiter. Which both parties were speaking in their mother tongue. At launch, it will be supporting 17 languages with more language packs to be added in the near future.

Besides, the real-time translation also works on chat apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, Messenger and more. Everything works in real time and it makes you feel like you’re a master of all languages.

Note Taking & Typing On Steroids

Galaxy AI also enhances the Samsung Keyboard that turns it into a smart assistant on steroids.

Samsung has demonstrated how the keyboard is able to help with our daily typing and communication needs. It is capable of setting the tone of the chat by just giving it a simple context. During the live demo session, they have showcased how a short note of an event can be formatted by the app and provides you with multiple samples to choose from.

It will even take scribbled meeting minutes and format it into something that looks professional. This is an absolute time-saving feature.

Combined with the real-time translation feature, now you can see where I’m going with how the Galaxy AI is changing the mobile industry. You have a copywriter on steroids working for you by summarizing articles and even doing all the translations.

What’s Next?

Let’s keep in mind that whatever Samsung has demonstrated so far, they are the first generation Galaxy AI features. As a long-time tech reviewer and software engineer, I am excited to see how far we have come in terms of mobile phone development. I’m sure there will be a huge chunk of users trying to rally negativity within the fan base simply because the hardware and design largely looked the same. We should never let ourselves be fooled by what we are seeing on the surface level.

Frankly speaking, we are no longer living in the era where chassis design teams must come up with bazillion designs just because they haven’t found out what the customer wants. This round, Samsung has shown us its commitment to empowering users through the advancement of technology.