Since the Galaxy S24 series' official unveiling on January 16, the most pressing concern for owners of older Galaxy smartphones has been whether Samsung's new software features will arrive in the One UI 6.1 update.
People are especially waiting for Samsung to shed some light on its plan to bring the Galaxy S24's AI-powered features to older Galaxy devices. While the Korean brand is still mum on that decision, the folks at TechRadar have provided an answer.
An earlier report by SamMobile indicated that Samsung is planning to only port some AI features to existing devices including the Galaxy S23, Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 in Q1 2024.
It is unclear whether other devices will get those features, given that some AI features will require Snapdragon and Exynos processors' top-notch machine learning and AI processing capabilities to work well.
Much to the chagrin of the Galaxy S22 series users, Samsung's Head of Customer Experience, Patrick Chomet has confirmed that the company's 2022 devices aren't likely to get Galaxy AI features although they are just a couple of years old.
Why not all older Galaxy devices will get the Galaxy AI features?
Speaking to TechRadar after the recently concluded Galaxy Unpacked 2024, Chomet told Tech Radar: "First of all, to get [these features] on the Galaxy S24 series was so much work".
"I'm exhausted. And actually, TM Roh [President of Samsung's mobile division] wanted to announce [at Unpacked] that we can support Galaxy S23 devices with Galaxy AI, which we will [now be doing] within the first half of the year," the top executive added.
"We want to ensure that, over time, our AI experiences can be supported by [mobile] performance, which leads to CPU and GPU capability," Chomet explained.
According to Chomet, Samsung is still learning and is going step-by-step. Notably, the Korean smartphone giant knows that the Galaxy AI works well on the Galaxy S24 series and its predecessor, but it is still trying to figure out what the intensity of AI usage will be for the average customer.
Chomet also pointed out that intensity will have a major impact on on-device resources and cloud resources. After securing the quality and the performance of what it deploys, Chomet says Samsung will monitor how people use these features to tune the performance.
Next, Samsung will test how the Galaxy AI works on a second set of devices including the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 FE, Z Fold 5, Z Flip 5 and Tab 9. Chomet also noted that Samsung is currently "limiting Galaxy AI to last-gen devices" referring to the Galaxy S23 FE and Galaxy S22 both using the company's own Exynos 2200 chipset.
There is a possibility that Samsung will add new Galaxy AI features to its 2023 phones via the One UI 6.1 update. Although the Galaxy S22 series (and older) qualify for the One UI 6.1 update, they aren't likely to get the newfangled AI-backed features.
It is also worth noting that an earlier report suggests Samsung will initially not make these AI features available in all languages. Likewise, a recently surfaced leak implies the Galaxy S24's AI features will be free only until 2025.
