Samsung Previews New Smartphone with a Focus on AI

When Samsung debuts its new smartphone, artificial intelligence will play a starring role.

The company, which makes more smartphones than any other firm, announced Tuesday (Jan. 2) it will introduce its new Galaxy S series phone at its Unpacked event Jan. 17, billing it as a “new era of mobile AI.”

It’s the first in what is likely to be a wave of AI-powered smartphones, with more than 1 billion such devices expected to be shipped in the next three years, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (Jan. 3), citing data from Counterpoint Research.

Following last year’s ChatGPT-led revolution, the next step in promoting AI will involve putting the technology into devices, the report said, something Qualcomm, a United States chipmaker, has been discussing.

“Samsung and Qualcomm are immediate leaders as current product offerings and capabilities position them as first movers,” Counterpoint researchers wrote last month. “Similar to what it did with foldables, Samsung is likely to capture almost 50% share for the next two years, followed by key Chinese OEMs like Xiaomi, Vivo, Honor and Oppo.”

The news comes ahead of next week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which will show AI moving from “the world of engineering and technology to the province of consumers, commerce and the connected economy,” with companies like Samsung and Qualcomm showcasing their products.

“We didn’t get the full CES fire hose of AI announcements last year like we’re going to have,” said Anshel Sag, a principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy. “If you thought it was a wave last year, it’s going to be a tsunami this year.”

While past CES events have placed other technology like 5G and the metaverse at the forefront, this year’s take on AI is “decidedly more practical,” PYMNTS wrote Wednesday, with CES research showing that consumers have begun incorporating it into day-to-day activities.

Meanwhile, the smartphone market is coming off its worst year in a decade, which means device makers could aim to use AI to sell more units by incorporating the electronics trend of the moment.

“And they will have two ways to do so: either by optimizing AI systems to run on battery-powered devices or by relying on cloud-hosted AI systems that [use] broadband connection,” PYMNTS wrote Dec. 29.

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