Samsung has done something strange with its Galaxy Unpacked event this time around in which it is introducing the One UI 7 and new Galaxy AI features ahead of the Galaxy S25 series. Though considering the prevalence of generative AI in the current tech climate, it’s probably not all that surprising, and perhaps it will be even more so once we get to the devices themselves.
Most of these improvements and additions though can be summed up by the upgrades to two elements – better context awareness and improved natural language understanding. This improves features introduced last year like Writing Assist and Drawing Assist, and with features like Call Assist and Transcript Assist being combined to bring users Call Transcripts.
As for what’s new, the boost to context awareness and language understanding allows you to search for specific images in your gallery by describing it. Type or vocally describe what you are looking for, and Galaxy AI will find something that matches the description. This can also be used to look for specific setting you may want to change on your phone.
The announcement at the Galaxy Unpacked event also confirmed the earlier rumour of the integration between Google Gemini and Samsung’s apps. Only, the integration also applies to some third party apps, with Spotify being one example that was mentioned by name. Also confirmed is the free Gemini Advanced with the Galaxy S25 series.
On the subject of Google, Circle to Search has gotten its own list of improvements. The major improvement here is contextual awareness, as the feature can now recognise phone numbers, emails and URLs, which you can then call, send messages to or visit with a tap.
Somewhat wrapping them all together is what Samsung calls Now Brief, which is basically the summary of what you have going on for the day. You can have this show up on the lock screen, from which you can have breakdowns for the time of day. This is powered by what it called the Personal Data Engine, which collects your personal data on-device to power all this tech. All of the data is wiped once they are done being used, and are also locked behind the Knox Vault.
It goes without saying that just about all of these features require that you’re signed in to your Samsung account, as well as a network connection. Which is a tad disappointing as the hardware improvement has not led to more on-device processing.
(Source: Samsung / YouTube)
