The heavy push for AI for its smartphones is what Samsung has inducted across its launch events, indicating a rapidly accelerating theme. In its latest event on July 10, it launched the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the Galaxy Z Flip 6, both indicative of how seriously Samsung takes AI enhancements.
In January, Samsung introduced the Galaxy AI with its new Galaxy S24 series, and this month it provided more AI features, tuned for its new foldable devices. It includes groundbreaking editing tools that allow regular photographs to become artistic portraits and basic sketches that can be turned into detailed artworks.
With the success of ChatGPT, interest in generative AI has reached a peak, and Samsung is just one of many other big tech corporations that want to infuse AI features within some of their most successful products. With Galaxy AI front and center in many of Samsung’s photo-editing tools, language translation services, and even the unique Circle-to-Search function, it truly is ahead of its time.
I have been using Galaxy AI on both the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the Galaxy S24 Ultra for the past six months. Some features are brilliant, but others fall short of their full potential. For instance, the Conversation mode of the Interpreter app does indeed show translations on both screens, so that sounded like a great idea, but it proved quite hard to use effectively in any conversation.
Composer is a more recent add-on and is intended to assist in composing a message or social media posting based on prompts. While this concept might sound magnificent, real-life suggestions often felt too inundated with emojis and not lifelike.
Despite these minor missteps, functions like Circle to Search and instant language translation inside text messages show the tangible benefits of its AI integrations.
First available with the Galaxy S24 series, Galaxy AI further expanded to more devices via software updates. Its wider support thus signals that Samsung considers Galaxy AI a core part of its mobile technology moving ahead. It now is supported on the Galaxy S22 series and later, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Z Fold 4 families and newer models.
Circle to Search
The Circle to Search function allows the user to make a Google search from any part of the screen of the phone by drawing only a circle around the part one is interested in. For example, if you scroll through your Instagram feed and find an advertisement for a dish that looks delicious, circling it will prompt Google to find recipes and local restaurants that have it on their menus. This tool is very useful and provides an alternative to Google Lens, as you can search directly from the screen without taking a picture first.
Circle to Search is useful in shopping, and finding recipes, or places nearby, but the potential is a bit broader. Adding text queries coupled with the circled content could do wonders in making the search results even more relevant and avoiding endless scrolling for information.
Noticeably, Circle to Search is not limited to Samsung devices; it’s available on some Pixel phones. Google even went ahead to extend the feature’s capabilities to solve mathematical problems.
Portrait Studio
The Portrait Studio feature in the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 is a playful way to turn photos into stylized portraits, comic, 3D cartoon, watercolor, or sketch style. Not particularly useful, but interestingly, it gives a good turn to your selfie or any other picture into creative artwork. Not a necessary tool by any stretch but entertainment and creativity for editing photos.
Sketch to Image
Sketch-to-image is another creative feature brought to life with the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6. It does exactly what it suggests: turns simple sketches into detailed images in a single tap. While not always precise—the drawing of the hat resulted in a book—it can be handy for quickly generating graphics for presentations or documents. Much like Portrait Studio, it’s something to have a bit of fun playing around with, even if it’s not a daily need.
Chat Assist
Four new capabilities embedded in the Messages app are Chat translation, Writing style, Composer, and Spelling and grammar. Of these, what really stood out was chat translation. It helps users translate an entire chat thread into different languages with a few taps—not having to copy-paste or switch apps. This is a very useful feature for travelers and in communication with foreigners; it has grown to support other languages like Arabic, Indonesian, and Russian.
Live Translate
One of the major focuses of Galaxy AI is Live Translate, which provides real-time translation over the phone. The user can tap the Live Translate button and the conversation will be translated at both ends. This could prove quite useful, for example, in making reservations or buying tickets overseas. It does feel a bit awkward to use, though; sometimes it’s hard to tell when it’s your turn to talk. The utility should get better with the addition of more languages.
Instant Slow-mo
Instant Slow-mo is an awesome capability of the Galaxy S24 series by which a user can press and hold on the screen to get a preview of what any video would look like in slow motion. This might not necessarily help in the context of practicality but does bring along some fun while viewing videos. Slow-motion clips, though, require an extra step to be saved that could be streamlined for better UX.
Generative Edit
Generative Edit effectively allows users to move, resize, and remove objects in photos—a capability much the same as what Google has with its Magic Editor. Of course, Samsung uses the same underlying Google technology but tries to set itself apart with watermarking on edited images and a single result rather than multiple options. This tool truly raises some photo authenticity questions; still, when used responsibly, it is an ultra-easy way to edit images without advanced software.
These new Galaxy AI features by Samsung are, of course, some of the most important steps forward in mobile technology. Not every feature is needed by every person, but truly, these innovations show what AI can enable on a smartphone. As Samsung further advances Galaxy AI, it will be exciting to see these tools mature and what new skills arise in the future.
