You know that feeling when you say a word so many times that it loses all meaning? That's how I'd say the world of AI feels right now. The phrase is bandied around left, right and centre to describe everything from chatbots to generative models to Photoshop tools to deepfakes. Since it's everywhere, the name 'AI' is beginning to feel as reductive as 'the internet' – and nobody's making that case more strongly than Samsung with its latest "AI phone".
The Galaxy S24, revealed yesterday, is peppered with AI features across almost every aspect of the device. From live translation to a slew of camera features, AI on the new Samsung phone means many different things. But whether the AI experience will prove more than the sum of its parts remains to be seen.
Samsung describes the new phone as heralding a "new era of mobile AI". Tools including chat, notes, camera, calls, search and voice record have all been touched by AI. One of the most impressive areas is live translation – with interpreter, live conversations can be instantly translated on a split-screen view so people standing opposite each other can read a text transcription of what the other person has said. And the AI is all on-device, with no need for a network connection or third-party app.
Meanwhile, the content editing tools are powerful and comprehensive. Slow Motion can transform a standard video into a slo-mo clip complete with smooth frame rate, and there are, of course, a bunch of AI-based features for touching up photos. "Edit Suggestion uses Galaxy AI to suggest perfectly suitable tweaks for each photo, Samsung says. "Generative Edit can fill in parts of an image background with generative AI. When a picture is crooked, AI will fill in the borders. When an object needs to be slightly moved to be in the perfect position, AI lets users adjust the position of the subject and generates a perfectly blended background in its original spot."
And then there's Chat Assist, which can literally suggest conversational tones when messaging. So if you're someone who frequently comes across like an arsehole over text, fear not! Samsung AI can "ensure communication sounds as it was intended, like a polite message to a coworker".
Overall, it's a series of small changes that could add up to a profound impact. While other tech brands such are selling their AI engines or assistants as entire entities (from Adobe's Firefly to Microsoft's Co-Pilot), Samsung seems to have cottoned onto the fact that AI is becoming increasingly hard to define.
