The news: Samsung leaned heavily on AI functionality at its Unpacked event Wednesday with the Galaxy S25 series, Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 smartphones and Galaxy Watch 8, all featuring enhanced AI capabilities as a core value proposition, per Android Central.

Samsung highlighted proprietary Galaxy AI for tasks like on-device photo and video editing, but the bigger news was Samsung’s adoption of Google Gemini across its ecosystem. Gemini has already replaced Samsung’s Bixby as the default voice assistant on Google and Samsung phones. 

Other AI updates from Unpacked: 

• Samsung referred to the new Galaxy devices as AI phones, pushing on-device and generative AI (genAI) features as key product differentiators. 
• Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Flip 7 buyers get six months of Google Pro (Gemini Pro and Veo) free. After that, some features may require a subscription.
• Gemini isn’t limited to phones—it extends to wearables like the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Buds, with multimodal screen search and contextual voice commands, all running on Gemini. 
• The latest Galaxy devices now support Google Gemini Live, enabling real-time AI that sees, hears, and responds to what’s on the user’s screen.

A booster for Gemini:  Samsung is currently No. 1 in smartphone sales and owns 20% of the global smartphone market, per IDC. Its global scale gives Google a bigger opportunity than its own Pixel phones to push Gemini Live into everyday use. 

The payoff: Gemini could become the most popular AI on smartphones and wearable devices, growing Google’s dominance while also accessing unlimited user training data and potential AI subscription revenues.

Our take: AI is the smartphone industry’s new battleground—and with Samsung relying on its tools, Google is well positioned to take the lead.

For advertisers, the shift toward screen-aware, voice-activated experiences requires them to rethink how brands and campaigns align in an AI-first mobile world. Reframing brand experiences around mobile, voice, and contextual AI features opens opportunities for user engagement.

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