Samsung and Google are not the best of friends. But they have now come together against their archnemesis- Apple Inc. Though Samsung and Google compete with each other in the mobile hardware segment, the revenues in this market contribute only a fraction of Google’s smartphone and associated technology inflows. In the software department, all Samsung smartphones are powered by Google’s Android, contributing a much larger share of Google’s revenues. GlobalData analyst Emma Christy observes that Samsung’s experience in consumer electronics and Google’s expertise in data and generative AI is a match made in heaven and will help the two tech giants ride the new On-device AI trend.
News from the San Jose developers conference is that Samsung is partnering with Google Cloud to implement GenAI on its latest smartphone devices. GenAI is Samsung’s reply to the generative AI boom. The big announcement came from T M Roh, president of Samsung’s mobile experience division addressing a developer community in San Jose. The new development plays out in the backdrop of Apple overtaking Samsung in smartphone sales after a long-standing 12-year lead.
The South Korean electronics giant’s AI model focuses more on creating new content rather than analyzing existing data. The collaboration will also mark the debut of Google’s Gemini Pro AI into consumer technology. It is the same AI model that works under the hood on Google’s in-house chatbot Bard.
The tie-up will allow Samsung smartphone users to natively edit images with tools powered by Gemini Pro and have access to a specialized AI chatbot. Additionally, the move will more closely integrate Google’s search engine into Samsung devices, introducing Circle to Search, which is expected to take the image-search functionality to a whole new level.
On the development front, Samsung developers can now use Google Cloud’s cutting-edge performance infrastructure and a more reliable and flexible medium of delivery. From the manufacturer’s point of view, building AI into devices will improve their security, reduce latency, and cut costs. AI technology has so far been well-received by smartphone buyers around the world.
The global AI market is projected to cross $900 billion by the end of 2030, according to analysts at GlobalData. With that, generative AI alone is expected to grow at a staggering pace of 80 percent year-on-year.
Notably, Samsung’s latest flagship phone Galaxy S24 Ultra will also use Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon chips, following their plans to use the chipset in their VR headphones.
Coming to the price tag, the S24 Ultra, priced at $1300, will cost $100 more, finally agreeing with Apple on something. The iPhone 15 Pro Max was launched with the same digits on it in September last year. The vanilla S24 will start at $800 and the S24 Plus will cost you $1000.
However, the new GenAI features would not be limited to the S24. The previous generation of S-series and Tab series devices will also get the upgrade. For existing Samsung smartphone owners, all the S24 models will come with better image manipulation tools giving the user more options to tweak the photos. Other Galaxy models coming out this year will also bring more AI features, including a real-time call translation, with support for 13 languages and 17 dialects.
Though Apple has big plans to add more AI bells and whistles into their next lineup of iPhones, Samsung gets a headstart here. Moreover, Samsung has managed to make smartphone technology more mainstream with their lower-end models. Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT over a year ago, AI has finally taken off and the discussions on the topic have left research labs and science fiction movies to pizza joints and high school classrooms. To add a pinch of caution, with so much new technology rolling out in a matter of a very few years, privacy will be the biggest concern for technology innovators, consumers, and policymakers alike.
