(Credit: Iyaz Akhtar)
When Samsung introduced the Galaxy S24 series last month, it added a suite of tools called Galaxy AI that are baked into the flagship smartphone. But company also said Galaxy AI would eventually make its way to other devices and now we know more details.
Starting in late March, a new update to One UI 6.1 will bring Galaxy AI to the Galaxy S23 series, as well as the Galaxy Z Flip 5, Z Fold 5, Tab S9, Tab S9+, and Tab S9 Ultra. In our time with the Galaxy S24 lineup, we found Galaxy AI to be no gimmick and truly useful.
One of the most touted Galaxy AI features is called Circle to Search, which lets you search for something that you see on your screen. Though it's just a new spin on Google Lens, the implementation is more practical. You hold down the home button or gesture area to get a prompt to select an area on the screen. Once selected, you will see the search results in a panel. Keep in mind that if you cannot take a screenshot of something (DRM movies, financial apps, etc.), Circle to Search will not work.
The Live Translate feature, meanwhile, will be available in the Samsung Phone app. As the name suggests, it allows two people who speak different languages to converse with one another in real-time. The phone provides audio translations to both parties on the call. This feature does not require the person on the other end of the call to have a particular Samsung phone. I participated in a demo with a Samsung representative in which I spoke English while he spoke Korean. The conversation speed is a little slowed down due to the time needed to complete the translations, but Live Translate enabled a call that would otherwise not be possible.
Note Assist lives in the Samsung Notes app and it can take the content of your note and provide an organized summary or a bulleted list to make your notes better. I have found this to be useful when trying to sort out an overgrown note.
For photos, Galaxy AI can help you resize something in a picture or generate something new quickly. For video, Galaxy AI lets you take a regular-speed video clip and turn part of it into slow motion. It generates the missing frames in such a smooth and natural way that you probably won't notice that Galaxy AI played a hand at all.
Considering the Samsung Galaxy S24 series uses the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 system on a chip and the older models do not, we will have to see how Galaxy AI performs on non-8 Gen 3 devices.
To check if you have the latest version of One UI, head to Settings > Software Update and tap Download and Install.