In South Korea, there is a management philosophy that some call inhwa. It means harmony. At some level, the idea runs through Samsung’s new flagship smartphone series — Galaxy S25. There are three offerings that you can purchase — Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+ and Galaxy S25 Ultra (we also caught a glimpse of Galaxy S25 Edge, which still doesn’t have a release date). There are, of course, a number of updates on the hardware front but it’s the artificial intelligence-driven features that have become a conversation starter.

Open collaboration and hybrid AI

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, Samsung Galaxy S25+ and Samsung Galaxy S25 on display in San Jose

TM Roh, president and head of mobile experience business at Samsung Electronics, knows a thing or two about harmony between hardware and software offerings.

“The industry is currently at an inflexion point, moving from smartphones to AI phones. The era of smartphones was about applications and touch experience. However, the era of AI phones will be about AI agents that will find the services that are just right for you and multimodality that allows intuitive and easy interactions with your phone. Galaxy S25 series marks the beginning of it all,” said TM when he sat down for a conversation with a few journalists from India after the launch of Galaxy S25 in San Jose.

The presence of multiple AI agents will make it easier to understand user needs and offer personalised services. “Based on multimodality, Samsung will present a new paradigm of interactions between users and devices, enabling the most natural mobile phone experience, as if you are talking to a friend.”

Samsung finds it beneficial to go about innovations through an open collaboration philosophy, constantly maturing through long-standing partnerships with top companies, like Google and Microsoft.

The list of AI-powered features on the new phones is too long to state — from cleaning up audio files to coming up with summaries. Holding down the side button on the phone activates Gemini and what we see is close interaction across Samsung and Google apps, besides third-party titles. Many of the new AI features have the touch of engineers at Samsung’s R&D centres in India.

Though Samsung has the bandwidth to work on its own large language model, it continues to work closely with, say, Google.
“The strategy and philosophy of Samsung mobile is to provide capabilities and services the market and customers want and to support the philosophy, we follow the principle of open collaboration. It is about providing the best solution, whatever is the most optimised service.”

Last year, Samsung began what it calls the Mobile AI era with the launch of Galaxy S24 phones. It was then the South Korean company announced the importance of hybrid AI. “It means, it is going to be AI on-device and cloud-based to provide the best combination. Second, to offer AI solutions from Samsung as well as our strategic partners,” said TM.

Tech enthusiasts take a closer look at the Samsung Galaxy S25 series in San Jose on Wednesday

Sustainable road ahead

AI features are obviously helpful but they can also be resource intensive. Like many other companies, Samsung is trying to strike a balance between sustainability goals and Galaxy AI features.

“Samsung will, of course, lead the era of Mobile AI. It will help the user experience. At the same time, we will continue to emphasise sustainability. For example, I just mentioned hybrid AI where on-device (computing) would be an important pillar. Compared to Cloud-based AI, on-device AI consumes less power on AI servers. It is not only for security and privacy, hybrid AI will help with sustainability efforts.”

TM quickly points out that the use of mobile phones in India is higher than the global average and “there is also the acceptability and openness to new innovative technologies”.

The research centres in India not only deal with localisation of features. “They work on the engine and the core platform which are very important for our global products. India makes a big contribution to developing and upgrading them. Also, the development of features based on local languages, including Hindi is also being done here.”

Security first

With AI comes the issue of privacy, especially when handoff is constantly happening between software elements from different companies, like Samsung and Google or Samsung and Microsoft. A key element on Galaxy S25 is the Personal Data Engine, which powers personalised AI features by “safely analysing your data on-device to deliver highly tailored experiences that reflect your preferences and usage patterns”.

All personalised data is kept safe using Knox Vault. Galaxy S25 also brings post-quantum cryptography to safeguard personal data against emerging threats that could increase as quantum computing evolves.

A close look at Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge

TM doesn’t hesitate to put forward his stance on user data. “We will make sure that they will not be used for training purposes for AI or for advertising purposes. We will also make sure that many more tasks can be processed on-device only, which quells concerns about privacy and security. For our consumers, we will make it clear as to what is being done on-device and what is being done on the Cloud so that they will have a choice.”

There are some holes one can pick at when it comes to AI in general but what Samsung has managed to do successfully is reorient the relationship one shares with the mobile phone. On that note, it’s time to check out a very useful feature that Samsung Galaxy S25 brings — Audio Eraser. What is that? Check it out on any new Galaxy S25 smartphone.

Make the call

Samsung opened its scorecard for the year with the launch of its flagship Galaxy S25 series comprising three devices — Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+ and Galaxy S25 Ultra.

The phones run on customised Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform for Galaxy chipset, delivering a good deal of on-device processing power, besides making improvements on the camera front.

You can pre-order Galaxy S25 series now across all leading online and offline retail stores. Consumers can also pre-order Galaxy S25 series on Samsung Live.

Galaxy S25 has two variants — 12GB+256GB (₹80,999) and 12GB+512GB (₹92,999). Galaxy S25+ too has two variants — 12GB+256GB (₹99,999) and 12GB+256GB (₹99,999). Galaxy S25 Ultra has three variants — 12GB+256GB (₹129,999), 12GB+512GB (₹141,999) and 12GB+1TB (₹165,999).

Consumers buying Galaxy S25 Ultra through Samsung.com will also get the option of choosing from three exclusive colours — Titanium Jade green, Titanium Jet black and Titanium Pink gold. Those buying Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus from Samsung.com will also get the option of three exclusive colours —Blue black, Coral red and Pink gold.