For more than a decade now, smartphones have been the default option for our personal communication and portable computing.
But gone are the days of comparing camera capabilities and looking at how the devices get thinner and lighter year on year – today, they are all much the same.
I sat down with Samsung’s president and head of mobile experience, TM Roh, along with a small group of media invited to Paris as guests of Samsung to discuss foldable smartphones and the AI revolution we are experiencing.
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Considering my personal view that we’ve essentially reached the peak of the smartphone market as they exist today, I asked Roh how consumers would differentiate devices in the future given the market saturation and if we would in fact be judging more on software and AI than on physical hardware attributes.
“When you think about just ordinary user scenarios or experience of traditional smartphones, our current hardware can satisfy those scenarios quite sufficiently,” he said.
“So in terms of that, maybe hardware performance in hardware has reached its peak, but at the same time in this new era of mobile AI – mobile AI calls for new hardware requirements, new performance, new phone factors, opening up new possibilities so that mobile AI can be better leveraged with new requirements and hardware.”
Essentially, instead of hearing about huge jumps in the megapixel counts of new smartphones, we’ll probably hear more about advances in hardware that benefit AI in future smartphones.
“Mobile AI will also spark new applications, new user scenarios and in tandem with that hardware also can develop and further advance and as a precursor to these, new development, new hardware requirements can also emerge.”
This term “mobile AI” is one Samsung looks keen to own.
Even within Samsung, it is moving away from the traditional way of looking at its business.
“Internally last year I proclaimed to the entire MX (mobile experience) business that we are no longer a smartphone business,” Roh said.
“We are an AI phone business, so we’re going to focus all the efforts around AI and its implementation.”
Samsung launched Galaxy AI – its artificial intelligence offering – with a big splash in January on the Galaxy S24 series and has already rolled out to more models, including the S23.
The company, though, has lofty goals for the number of Galaxy AI compatible devices.
“It was this philosophy that enabled us to make a commitment that Galaxy AI will be available on not just S24, but other S series that were launched after 2022 and other foldable Z series as well, those would be updated to have access to Galaxy AI features,” Roh said.
“By doing so we’re going to enable 200 million units equipped with Galaxy AI features, and so that is how we are democratising technology.”
Taking a look at the short six-month window of Galaxy AI usage thus far, and keeping in mind the concerns some people raise about what AI is happening on device and which commands are being sent to the cloud for AI processing, Roh said: “Circle to search is the most frequently used AI future, but that is search – so if we exclude that, when you look at all the other AI features then the numbers are on-device 55 per cent, and cloud-based AI is 45 per cent – that is the pattern of consumers.”
Thinking about a potential goal of 100 per cent AI on device, Roh was far more reserved, explaining that depended on what features users wanted.
“All of the use-cases that are more privacy and latency-sensitive, and that require more fast responsiveness, those will be handled on-device,” he said.
“The AI use-cases that require powerful performance and greater performance or an execution that will be done by cloud-based AI, but at the same time with cloud-based AI, there might be some of them that can be implemented on the on-device AI will be converted to on-device AI and the cloud-based AI will also charge new areas and explore new possibilities going forward.”
He speculated that “in two to five years time, I think the ratio might be similar (50/50) and about the question of 100 per cent on-device only by AI, it’s up to the consumer, so if, because of the privacy concerns, a consumer does not utilise any cloud-based AI currently, you can also already be 100 per cent on-device AI, so we offer the choice to consumers.”
Samsung’s foldable range of smartphones has been updated this week, with the new Z Flip6 and Z Fold6 now featuring Galaxy AI capabilities.
Those devices are priced from $1799 and $2749 respectively, so when asked if more affordable Foldable smartphones were on the way, Roh did not rule it out, saying “at Samsung mobile, our key focus area is to provide even more premium experience for foldable users, and second, we are also doing our R&D in conjunction with partnered companies to see the possibility of more affordable foldables”.
“So when these efforts come to fruition, we’ll be able to share more information and bring more affordable foldable to the market.”
And if Apple’s reluctance to go foldable made anyone question if the market segment was even worth creating, Roh was clear.
“At the time of the launch of the first foldables in 2019, some raised concern that this is only a niche product and can not be really mainstream, but when we look at our current status and the growth of the foldables, we can safely say that our direction was on track.”
I asked Samsung’s head of mobile directly – did he think Apple would release a foldable phone?
His response was inevitable, saying: “I cannot really speak for other company, but our key strength is listening to the voices of consumers and requirements and needs of the market.
“So we will continue to develop our technology and we will also engage in open collaboration based on philosophy or openness.
“We always pursue by doing so we’re going to offer the best possible experience and usability to consumers earlier than anyone else in the market and to democratise technology so that as wide people as possible can have access to those technologies.”
Seems pretty clear – foldables are here to stay, and the new benchmark for smartphones is going to be AI, the new battleground.
Trevor Long travelled to Paris as a guest of Samsung Australia.
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