Samsung says that the Galaxy S24 is its first AI Phone. But what does that mean? The company's newest flagship smartphone comes with Galaxy AI, which is a suite of dozens of AI-powered features that enhance a user's daily life. For example, Galaxy AI offers real-time language translations during messaging and voice calls, removing the language barrier. It also offers language improvement while messaging and summarizes notes and voice recordings, increasing productivity.
However, these features are not coming to phones and tablets released before 2023, even if they're high-end devices. Here's why.
Older phones might not have powerful NPUs for Galaxy AI
Samsung made it clear after the launch of the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24+, and Galaxy S24 Ultra that its Galaxy AI features are not coming to high-end phones or tablets released before 2023. Mid-range and affordable Galaxy devices aren't getting AI features as well. Speaking to TechRadar, Patrick Chomet, Samsung’s Head of Customer Experience, explained that Galaxy AI features won't come to older phones because the company doesn't think they will perform as fast or as reliably as they do on the Galaxy S24 and the high-end phone released in the year 2023. The CPU, GPU, and NPUs inside older phones might not be powerful enough to run all those AI features well enough. He said:
“We want to ensure that, over time, our AI experiences can be supported by [mobile] performance, which leads to CPU and GPU capability. So, for now, we are learning; we are going step-by-step. We know that Galaxy AI works well on the Galaxy S24 series, and we know it will work well on [the Galaxy S23 series]. But we don’t know what the intensity of AI usage will be for the average customer, and [therefore how that] intensity will impact on-device resources and cloud resources.
Number one, we want to secure the quality and the performance of what we deploy. Then, we will learn how people use [these features] and tune the performance. Number two, we will deploy [Galaxy AI] on a second set of devices – specifically, the S23, S23 FE, Z Fold 5, Z Flip 5, and Tab S9 – to see how it works.”
Watch our in-depth video below to see all the Galaxy AI features that debuted with One UI 6.1 on the Galaxy S24 series.
\And it's not just the hardware capabilities of older phones. Some AI features run entirely on-device, thanks to the powerful Exynos 2400 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processors, but some of them require an internet connection. It means that it needs a lot of servers and cloud computing power on the backend, and Samsung might not be ready to offer those resources (and the money needed to support them) to older devices as of now.
List of Galaxy phones and tablets getting Galaxy AI features
- Galaxy S23
- Galaxy S23+
- Galaxy S23 Ultra
- Galaxy Z Flip 5
- Galaxy Z Fold 5
- Galaxy Tab S9
- Galaxy Tab S9+
- Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra
Watch our in-depth One UI 6.1 video below.
