Artificial intelligence (AI) features in new smartphones from Samsung and Apple signal a shift that could alter user interactions and mobile commerce.
Samsung set the stage at its Galaxy Unpacked event this week, introducing AI capabilities in its latest foldable devices, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6. These features leverage on-device AI to enhance productivity and creativity.
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 introduces Note Assist, an AI-powered feature in Samsung Notes that can translate, summarize and auto-format notes. The device’s keyboard now also includes a Composer feature that generates suggested text for emails and social media posts, adapting to the user’s writing style.
Samsung has also upgraded its Interpreter feature to include a conversation mode, allowing real-time translations to be displayed on both the primary and cover screens of the Galaxy Z Fold 6. In photography, both models have an AI ProVisual Engine that optimizes photos based on the subject. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 offers Portrait Studio for creating stylized portrait images, while the Z Flip 6 introduces an auto zoom for FlexCam, which uses AI to frame shots hands-free.
Industry analysts predict that these AI-enhanced smartphones could significantly impact mobile commerce by offering more personalized experiences and streamlining transactions.
Tyler Rice, founder of kimchi.co and an iOS developer, sees significant potential in AI-driven mobile commerce.
“A big one is better search,” Rice told PYMNTS. “LLMs (large language models) allow for a better search experience so customers can more quickly find the products they are looking for or interested in.”
The move comes after Apple recently introduced Apple Intelligence, a personal intelligence system for iPhone, iPad and Mac. This system, which will be integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, combines generative AI models with personal context to deliver tailored intelligence across the user experience.
Apple’s system introduced new tools to rewrite, proofread and summarize text across various apps. These tools offer different writing styles for various contexts, from formal business communications to casual social media posts. In Mail, a new Priority Messages feature highlights urgent emails, while Smart Reply provides contextual response suggestions and can identify questions in an email to ensure comprehensive responses.
The system also introduces Image Playground, a feature that allows users to create custom images within apps like Messages, Notes and third-party applications. Users can choose from different styles such as Animation, Illustration or Sketch, and the system can generate images based on text descriptions or rough sketches.
Apple has also unveiled Genmoji, a feature that allows users to create original, personalized emoji-like characters based on text descriptions or photos of friends and family.
Both Samsung and Apple are leveraging AI to enhance the notification experience. Samsung’s devices now offer more intelligent notification organization. At the same time, Apple’s system includes Priority Notifications that surface critical alerts and provide summaries of long or stacked notifications directly on the Lock Screen.
However, Rice cautioned about the challenges these upgrades face, particularly regarding costs.
“These models are getting cheaper to run and seem to be on a curve downward, but they are currently expensive to run for search experiences or customer support experiences,” he said.
Despite these hurdles, Rice sees significant opportunities for businesses.
“AI can better understand user’s intentions, which can help engage customers allowing them to more quickly find what they are looking for or get the information about a product that they need,” he noted.
Businesses adapting to an AI-driven mobile marketplace will face both challenges and opportunities.
One significant challenge is the increased security threats. As Chris Roeckl, chief product officer at Appdome, told PYMNTS, “mobile brands need to up their mobile security game as bad actors leverage AI to generate and launch attacks against mobile apps and users.”
He noted that mobile social engineering attacks are already on the rise and are expected to “increase and become more diverse over time.” Companies need to focus on improving their mobile app security and defense strategies to address this.
“Automated, no-code platforms exist today that provide hundreds of protections, working with existing DevOps pipelines,” Roeckl said.
He also highlighted the vulnerability of FinTech software development kits to these new threats, emphasizing “the need for better protections for them as well.”
On the opportunity side, AI-enabled smartphones can be leveraged to enhance customer engagement and personalize marketing strategies.
“As security threats increase, mobile brands will be able to leverage AI-enabled security tools to help eliminate threats and attacks on their smartphones, ensuring safe experiences for mobile users,” Roeckl said.
He argued that such security measures can “help build user engagement, trust and loyalty,” thereby improving customer relationships and brand reputation.
As smartphone manufacturers seek to differentiate their products in a saturated market, AI features represent a new frontier for innovation. However, privacy concerns and the learning curve of new AI tools could present obstacles to widespread acceptance.
Apple aims to address privacy concerns with its Private Cloud Compute technology, which it claims sets a new standard for privacy in AI by flexibly scaling computational capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models running on dedicated Apple silicon servers. Samsung, too, has emphasized the on-device nature of many of its AI features to allay privacy concerns.
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