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

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.

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)

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)

MUTTENZ, Switzerland (AP) — Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini won again in court Tuesday and now lead 2-0 in trial verdicts against Swiss federal prosecutors.

Once soccer’s most powerful men, former FIFA president Blatter and former UEFA president Platini were acquitted for a second time in a case now in its 10th year on charges of fraud, forgery, mismanagement and misappropriation of more than $2 million of FIFA money in 2011.

Blatter, now aged 89, gave little reaction listening to the verdict of three cantonal (state) judges acting as a federal criminal appeals court. Sitting in the row in front of Platini, Blatter alternately tapped his fingers on his desk or held his left hand over his mouth.

Only when the 55-minute verdict statement was over did Blatter smile before reaching across to shake his lawyer's hand. Blatter then shared a long hug with his daughter, Corinne.

“You have seen my daughter was coming with tears because she believed in (her) father and I believed in myself,” said Blatter, who spoke of a sword of Damocles being removed from over his head. “To wait such a long time affects the person and my family was very much affected."

Platini sat with his arms folded or rubbing his hands as he listened to a translator sitting beside him relating the court's verdict in German into his native French.

“This persecution by FIFA and some Swiss federal prosecutors for 10 years is now finished, is now totally finished," Platini said leaving the court, insisting his honor was restored. "So I’m very happy.”

The attorney general’s office in Switzerland had challenged a first acquittal in July 2022 and asked for sentences of 20 months, suspended for two years. The indictment alleged the payment “damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini.”

“Michel Platini must finally be left in peace in criminal matters,” his lawyer Dominic Nellen said in a statement. ”After two acquittals, even the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland must realize that these criminal proceedings have definitively failed."

A further appeal to the Swiss supreme court can be filed by the prosecutors' office, which said in a statement it “will decide about how to further proceed.”

Blatter and Platini have consistently denied wrongdoing in a decade-long case that ultimately came to nothing in court yet totally altered world soccer body FIFA.

The legal case swung on their claims of a verbal agreement to one day settle the money in question.

Blatter approved FIFA paying 2 million Swiss francs (now $2.21 million) to France soccer great Platini in February 2011 for supplementary and non-contracted salary working as a presidential advisor from 1998-2002.

The latest win for Blatter and the 69-year-old Platini came exactly 9½ years since the Swiss federal investigation was revealed and kicked off events that ended the careers of the two men.

That September 2015 day in Zurich, police came to interrogate them at FIFA after an executive committee meeting when Platini was a strong favorite to succeed his one-time mentor in an upcoming election.

With Platini soon suspended and banned by FIFA, European soccer body UEFA ran his long-time secretary general Gianni Infantino as its election candidate. Infantino was a surprise winner in February 2016 and is set to lead FIFA until at least 2031.

Though federal court trials have twice cleared their names, Blatter’s reputation likely always will be tied to leading FIFA during corruption crises that took down a swath of senior soccer officials worldwide.

Platini, one of soccer’s greatest players and later Blatter’s protégé in soccer politics, never did get the FIFA presidency he often called his destiny.

Neither Blatter nor Platini has worked in soccer since they were suspended by the FIFA ethics committee in October 2015. They were later banned and failed to overturn the bans in separate appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2016.

”The criminal proceedings have had not only legal but also massive personal and professional consequences for Michel Platini, although no incriminating evidence was ever presented," Nellen said, suggesting further legal action "against those responsible for the criminal proceedings.”

Platini’s ban expired in 2019 and Blatter was given a subsequent ban by FIFA in 2021 months before his first was due to end.

Blatter is exiled from soccer until late in 2028 — when he will be 92 — because of an ethics prosecution of alleged self-dealing in eight-figure management bonuses paid for successfully organizing the men’s World Cup in 2010 and 2014.

The verdict was given Tuesday in a low-key provincial courthouse where a four-day trial was held three weeks ago.

Blatter and Platini have claimed at five different judicial bodies — twice at FIFA, then the Court of Arbitration for Sport and now two Swiss federal criminal courts — that they had a verbal “gentleman’s agreement” to one day settle the unpaid and non-contracted salary.

Platini was a storied former captain and coach of the France national term when he worked to help Blatter get elected to lead FIFA in Paris on the eve of the 1998 World Cup he organized.

The two men said Platini agreed to be a presidential adviser on an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs (now $340,000) through 2002. They claim there was a verbal deal to later get the balance of 1 million Swiss francs for each year that FIFA could not pay at the time.

Platini started asking for the money early in 2010, citing seven-figure payments made to senior Blatter aides who left FIFA which showed the soccer body could afford to pay him. The payment was finally made in February 2011.

Details of the payment only emerged in the crisis that hit FIFA in May 2015 when U.S. federal investigators unsealed a sweeping investigation of international soccer officials. Swiss authorities made early-morning arrests at hotels in Zurich before seizing FIFA financial and business records.

In 2015, Swiss federal prosecutors already were handling a criminal complaint filed by FIFA. That was about suspected financial wrongdoing linked to votes in December 2010 that picked Russia and Qatar as future World Cup hosts.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Former UEFA President, Michel Platini after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former UEFA President, Michel Platini after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former UEFA President, Michel Platini after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former Fifa President, Sepp Blatter, centre, and his lawyer Lorenz Erni, right, after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former Fifa President, Sepp Blatter, centre, and his lawyer Lorenz Erni, right, after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former UEFA President, Michel Platini, after the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former Fifa President, Sepp Blatter, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former UEFA President, Michel Platini, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former UEFA President, Michel Platini, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former UEFA President, Michel Platini, centre, and his Lawyer Dominic Nellen, left, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former Fifa President, Sepp Blatter, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former UEFA President, Michel Platini, centre, and his Lawyer Dominic Nellen, left, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

Former Fifa President, Sepp Blatter, arriving to the verdict at the special appeals court, in Muttenz, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)