Samsung AI stands for "Advanced Intelligence", gives users option run features on-device only

When Samsung announced Samsung AI for its new S24 series of smartphones, it had been widely assumed the initials stood for “Artificial Intelligence” as it typically stands for. However, in getting hands-on with the new Galaxy S24 Ultra on its release, it turns out that Samsung has actually tweaked AI to stand for “Advanced Intelligence”. 

It’s an interesting pivot, as it highlights the company is cognizant about the negative connotations that can be associated with AI including privacy, job loss, bias, ethical dilemmas, and the potential to – in the most doomsday scenarios – take control of humanity Terminator-style.

Samsung placed a strong emphasis on AI and the experiences and capabilities it offers at its recent Galaxy Unpacked launch event for the S24 series, following Google’s lead in introducing generative AI tech features to users of its Pixel 8 Pro. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, generative AI is taking the tech world by storm following the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to the public in late 2022.

Apple is also said to have made multiple acquisitions and nearly half of its recent job postings have been AI-related as it aims to catch up with big changes rumored for its next iteration of iOS.

Another interesting aspect of Samsung’s “Advanced Intelligence” features that we have uncovered under the “Advanced Settings” tab is that the company has integrated a toggle in its settings to enable users to only run compatible AI features on-device. As the company notes, this provides added privacy as user data isn’t being relayed to Samsung’s servers for processing (which includes other downsides like lag, additional data consumption and battery drain through reliance on cellular connectivity). 

The only downside is that certain generative AI features that Samsung is offering like its new Photo Assist which need additional processing will require users to toggle off the on-device functionality to use, or lose access to the capability.

That Samsung is giving users the option to toggle on-device AI on or off, however, is to be applauded, from both a user privacy perspective, but also from the perspective of complete transparency. This, as we have reported, is quite a different approach to how Google has been marketing the generative AI features offered in many cases ‘via’ the Pixel 8 Pro and not ‘on’ it. 

Whilst Google made it clear that its new Video Boost and Night Sight Video require an internet connection for processing, it implied by omission that the other generative AI features are processed on-device as a marketing ploy to highlight the alleged power of the Tensor G3. In giving users the option to toggle on-device AI on or off, S24 series will be in no doubt about what is being processed on-device, and what may need to be off-loaded to the cloud.