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Samsung aims to turn its next generation of Galaxy smartphones into AI companions

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Samsung aims to turn its next generation of Galaxy smartphones into AI companions
News

News

Samsung aims to turn its next generation of Galaxy smartphones into AI companions

2025-01-23 02:50 Last Updated At:03:11

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Samsung is injecting another dose of artificial intelligence into its next lineup of Galaxy smartphones, escalating an effort to simplify people’s lives while deepening their dependence on a device that accompanies them almost everywhere.

The three Galaxy S25 models unveiled Wednesday in San Jose, California, are the second generation to be designed for the AI age — a craze that market-leading Apple joined last September with the release of the iPhone 16. Most of the hardware on the Galaxy S25 is mostly the same as last year's model, except for a faster chip and a more powerful ultrawide lens on the camera.

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The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

A Samsung employee shows off the new Samsung Galaxy S25 phone, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

A Samsung employee shows off the new Samsung Galaxy S25 phone, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

In its next phase, Samsung is positioning the Galaxy S25 as an “AI companion” capable of pulling more requests out of conversations, learning people’s routines, anticipating people's needs and performing more technological tricks, such as being able to remove unwanted sounds from videos or identifying the name of a song upon request.

The AI on the new Galaxy phones has been designed to toggle from one app to another to fetch, summarize and manage information, entertainment and other content stored on the devices. In an attempt to make the technology even more indispensable, the AI on Galaxy S25 will be able to create customized digital dossiers on users' behavior patterns and other unique characteristics that Samsung is calling a “personal data engine.”

“Everything you see here is the beginning of a new reality," said TM Roh, the Samsung executive who oversees its smartphones. “Things that you thought you could never do, but now you can.”

As Apple has been doing with its AI features, Samsung is promising that its technology will shield users' privacy while also peering into their lives. Samsung is providing the protection primarily by keeping all the knowledge accrued by its AI technology on the Galaxy devices — within a digital fortress the company nicknamed after Fort Knox, the Kentucky Army base seated next to the U.S. government’s depository for gold.

After raising prices last year, Samsung is standing pat with the Galaxy S25 phones, with the standard model starting at $800, the Plus model at $1,000 and the Ultra model at $1,300. The phones are scheduled to be in stores starting Feb. 7.

Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson thinks the Galaxy S25 models “will offer a more intuitive user experience with more integrated vocal and cross-app experiences, but AI is not yet a key reason to buy a new smartphone.”

Samsung is doubling down on its AI bet after getting a sales bump from the past year's emphasis on the technology. The South Korean company sold 32 million of its Galaxy S24 models from January through September last year, a 25% increase from the same time in the previous year, according to the research group Canalys.

But Samsung didn’t fare as well in the lower end of the smartphone market, where it was hurt by cheaper devices made by Chinese competitors. That’s one of the reasons Samsung’s total smartphone shipments fell by 1% last year, leaving it slightly behind Apple in the worldwide market, according to the research firm International Data Crop.

As was the case with last year’s models, the Galaxy S25 will draw heavily on AI technology made by Google, the maker of the free operating system Android that Samsung has long used for its smartphones.

Some of the new AI tricks, such as the ability to deploy Google's “circle to search” technology to quickly identify the song title of music playing in a video, will debut on the Galaxy S25 before coming to other Android phones later this year. Google also has been planting more AI on its own phone, the Pixel, but that device still lags far behind the iPhone and Galaxy.

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

A Samsung employee shows off the new Samsung Galaxy S25 phone, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

A Samsung employee shows off the new Samsung Galaxy S25 phone, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

The new line of Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, with advanced camera and artificial intelligence capabilities, are unveiled at a media preview event in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Haven Daily)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal agents carrying out immigration arrests in Minnesota's Twin Cities region already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman rammed the door of one home Sunday and pushed their way inside, part of what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest enforcement operation ever.

In a dramatic scene similar to those playing out across Minneapolis, agents captured a man in the home just minutes after pepper spraying protesters outside who had confronted the heavily armed federal agents. Along the residential street, protesters honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt the operation.

Video of the clash taken by The Associated Press showed some agents pushing back protesters while a distraught woman later emerged from the house with a document that federal agents presented to arrest the man. Signed by an immigration officer, the document — unlike a warrant signed by a judge — does not authorize forced entry into a private residence. A warrant signed by an immigration officer only authorizes arrest in a public area.

Immigrant advocacy groups have conducted extensive “know-your-rights” campaigns urging people not to open their doors unless agents have a court order signed by a judge.

But within minutes of ramming the door in a neighborhood filled with single-family homes, the handcuffed man was led away.

More than 2,000 immigration arrests have been made in Minnesota since the enforcement operation began at the beginning of December, said Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News on Sunday that the administration would send additional federal agents to Minnesota to protect immigration officers and continue enforcement.

The Twin Cities — the latest target in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign — is bracing for what is next after 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer on Wednesday.

“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”

Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.

People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners Sunday in the neighborhood where Good was killed, watching for any signs of federal agents.

More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .

“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.

The protests have been largely peaceful, but residents remained anxious. On Monday, Minneapolis public schools will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.

Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.

While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said that the investigation into Good's shooting death should not be overseen solely by the federal government.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.

“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened," Smith said on ABC’s "This Week."

The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.

Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”

"That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.

Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn't be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”

The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests in cities across the country over the weekend, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Oakland, California.

Contributing were Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis; Thomas Strong in Washington; Bill Barrow in Atlanta; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio.

A woman gets into an altercation with a federal immigration officer as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A woman gets into an altercation with a federal immigration officer as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A federal immigration officer deploys pepper spray as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A federal immigration officer deploys pepper spray as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A family member, center, reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A family member, center, reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Bystanders are treated after being pepper sprayed as federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Bystanders are treated after being pepper sprayed as federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A family member reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A family member reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Federal agents look on after detaining a person during a patrol in Minneapolis, Minn., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP)

Federal agents look on after detaining a person during a patrol in Minneapolis, Minn., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP)

Bystanders react after a man was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Bystanders react after a man was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)

People stand near a memorial at the site where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)

People stand near a memorial at the site where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)

A man looks out of a car window after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A man looks out of a car window after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Border Patrol agents detain a man, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Border Patrol agents detain a man, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

People shout toward Border Patrol agents making an arrest, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

People shout toward Border Patrol agents making an arrest, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Demonstrators protest outside the White House in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Demonstrators protest outside the White House in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey holds a news conference on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey holds a news conference on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)

Protesters react as they visit a makeshift memorial during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Protesters react as they visit a makeshift memorial during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

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