• Samsung emphasizes a user-friendly approach to AI, allowing users to interact naturally with their phones to accomplish complex tasks.
• The Personal Data Engine prioritizes user privacy by keeping all learned information and actions on-device, secured by Samsung’s Knox security hardware.

SAN JOSE, Calif. – At its annual winter reveal here today, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S25-series, a trio of flagship smartphones with an enticing one-stop-shop approach to AI. Crucially, the electronics giant also built in an abundance of new capabilities and performance improvements to entice would-be buyers who aren’t the least bit interested in AI.

Last year – a year that was broadly proclaimed from the start to be the Year of AI – suppliers quickly discovered that consumers were interested in upgrading their phones. But not because new phones were AI-enabled. Rather, consumers wanted to buy the new devices because they were a far cry better at doing everyday phone stuff than what they had.

“A year ago, we were the first major manufacturer out of the gate with what we were describing as a new era of AI,” Dave Das, Executive Vice President in charge of Samsung’s US Mobile business, told me. “We were first to market. We were very excited about it and we leaned heavily into it.”

Das continued: “It seems quite obvious in hindsight, but we realized several months in that a lot of our customers were still buying phones primarily for the camera, battery life, screen quality – traditional hardware benefits that, as an industry, we’ve been talking about for decades.”

No matter that Samsung debuted some of what turned out to be the most popular AI features of 2024 during the S24-series rollout last January. One such feature – Circle to Search, which gathers information on the internet about something you highlight in a picture – boasts 10 million users, 2 million of whom squiggle daily.

AI devices:The game-changing all-day laptop power at CES 2025

Camera upgrade

With that as a backdrop, it should come as no surprise that the S25, the first major smartphone of the Year After the Year of AI, is loaded with trad upgrades. For example, the ultrawide lens – one of four rear-facing lenses on the S-series Ultra – has been upgraded to 50MP from 12MP. The remaining primary camera (200MP) and the dual telephoto lenses (50MP and 10MP) are unchanged from the S24 Ultra.

From a pure specmanship point of the view, the two 50MP lenses coupled with the 200MP lens helps give an edge to the S25 Ultra. By comparison, some of the newest high-end

Android competitors bundle three 50MP cameras. The highest-end iPhone, the iPhone 18 Pro Max, pairs two 48MP lenses with a 12MP telephoto lens.

Processing prowess

As well, the S25-series smartphones sets itself apart with what bench markers say is the biggest single-year leap in performance and efficiency that Samsung – or any Android smartphone maker, for that matter – has seen in quite some time.

That is due in no small part to a higher-performing, exclusive-to-Samsung variant of Qualcomm’s generation-leaping smartphone chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy. The custom chipset also logs performance and efficiency scores that beat Apple’s best, the A18 Pro chipset inside the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

All three S25-series models are available for preorder now, with devices arriving in buyers’ hands beginning February 7. Pricing: $799.99 (S25), $999.99 (S25+) and $1,299.99 (S25 Ultra).

And then, of course, there’s the eye-popping next-gen AI platform you’re probably not yet considering. But do yourself a favor and keep reading.

You don’t need an app for that

Perhaps the coolest part of the new AI platform is that it’s built right into Samsung’s custom Android interface called One UI. With One UI 7, the new version, on an S25-series phone, you don’t need to flip between apps to put together an evening with friends.

Just ask the Personal Data Engine. That’s One UI 7’s do-everything agent, which is designed to mold itself into your assistant. It will figure out which apps to consult and what it needs to do.

Press the home button for a second or two and start talking: “Find a night that we’re free when the Suns are playing and Betsy and Steve are in town. Ask my wife if she’d like to invite them for dinner. If so, let’s plan a barbecue if the weather’s nice or order pizza if it’s not.”

From that one request, the Personal Data Engine will build itself a to-do list and get to work.

You don’t know me – yet!

The Personal Data Engine isn’t content to wait for commands. It will watch to see what it can do to make your life easier and better. What it ultimately discovers to do for you is anyone’s guess. But there are some obvious things, like figuring out what information you like to have handy, whether it’s news about basketball or Taylor Swift tickets.

Samsung’s already spotted a few things it can do. If you regularly fall asleep in front of the TV, the Personal Data Engine can leverage your smartwatch to see when you fall asleep. And then it will slowly turn off the TV so you’ll stay asleep.

The Personal Data Engine is designed to keep everything it learns about you – and does for you – on device. And Samsung’s Knox security hardware helps keep it safe.

“The S24 was more about leveraging AI for particular uses and functions,” Samsung’s Das said. “The S25 is about interacting naturally with the phone to accomplish tasks – tasks that used to take multiple steps.

“Couple that with the fact that we’re not forgetting about enhancing the hardware,” Das continued.

Like last year, of course, Samsung will still need compelling hardware to entice many consumers to buy. What’s different this time, though, is that the AI just might be good enough to keep them around.

USA TODAY columnist Mike Feibus is president and principal analyst of FeibusTech, a Scottsdale, Arizona, market research and consulting firm. Reach him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MikeFeibus.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY.