In an exclusive interview with TechRadar following Galaxy Unpacked 2024, Samsung confirmed that a selection of its new Galaxy AI features will be coming to Galaxy S23 phones “within the first half of the year”, and now we’ve got a better idea of which features, specifically, will be making the jump across generations.
As spotted by X user Tarun Vats (via SamMobile), Samsung has listed Circle To Search, Live Translate, Note Assist and Photo Assist as features that are ‘coming soon’ to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. We’re confident that these features will be made available on the standard Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus, Galaxy S23 FE, Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5, too.
Conversely, no such messaging appears next to the Galaxy S22 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold 4, Galaxy Z Flip 5, Galaxy A54 or Galaxy A34 on Samsung’s website, which more or less confirms that none of these phones (nor any phones in their respective lines) will be getting Galaxy AI features any time soon, if ever.
Samsung officiall web app pic.twitter.com/J3vB0AqmtQFebruary 5, 2024
When probed on the chipset uniformity between the Galaxy S23 FE and Galaxy S22 at Galaxy Unpacked 2024, Samsung executive Patrick Chomet told TechRadar that “for now, [Samsung is] limiting Galaxy AI to last-gen devices,” even though the former runs on the same Exynos 2200 chipset as the latter. Evidently, then, Samsung is grouping its Galaxy AI-compatible handsets by release date, rather than internal hardware.
In any case, we now know that four of the best Galaxy AI features – Circle To Search, Live Translate, Note Assist and Photo Assist – are coming to Galaxy S23 phones in the next few months, and we expect them to be added via Samsung’s One UI 6.1 update.
So, what do these features do, exactly? Well, Circle to Search is essentially an enhanced version of Google Lens; it lets you search Google for objects using nothing but your fingertip (or an S Pen) and your phone’s home button. We recently put Circle to Search to the test (check out the TikTok video below), and were impressed by its ability to accurately identify all manner of objects at speed.
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Live Translate, on the other hand, allows for real-time, two-way voice and text translations of phone calls within the native Samsung Phone app, which is helpful when you need to communicate with someone who doesn’t speak your language (and vice versa).
The Note Assist feature uses AI to summarize Samsung Notes text into easy-to-read templates, while Photo Assist lets you adjust the angle of images and fill the resulting blank space with Generative AI content that matches the scene. Samsung’s Patrick Chomet defended the ethics of the latter feature in a separate interview with TechRadar.
Plenty more Galaxy AI features – Interpreter, Chat Assist, Transcript Assist, and so on – are available on Samsung's Galaxy S24 phones, but we’re yet to receive confirmation of their imminent move to last-generation Samsung phones.
For now, though, Galaxy S23 owners can rest assured that they’ll be able to take advantage of Galaxy AI’s four biggest features very soon.
