The Galaxy S25 Ultra, Samsung’s flagship S series phone for 2025, is going all in on Galaxy AI. While the phone does get some meaningful hardware upgrades, the main focus this year is on making the Ultra the best AI phone out there. Samsung wants to change the way users interact with the phone. And the Galaxy S25 series gets multimodal AI agents to do just that.
Galaxy AI has evolved, and compared to last year, you can do a lot more now. From translating and summarising texts to creating images, from advanced Circle to Search to Google’s Gemini with natural language search being available everywhere, the Galaxy S25 series could be a glimpse at the phones of the future.
I’ve been using the Galaxy S25 Ultra and its AI features for the last few weeks, and here’s a brief look at all the new things Galaxy AI can do on Samsung’s latest flagship.
Now Bar
As soon as you wake up the phone, you’re now greeted with the Now Bar, which sits on the lockscreen. This is a contextual bar that gives you updates from apps and shows information on events. The bar will show you information on the music that you’re listening to, flight timings, the best time to leave for the airport, Google Maps directions, delivery updates, and live scores from games that you follow or are interested in.
The Now Bar sits on the lock screen
You can tap on a particular bar to get even more information and swipe through it to see all the different updates.
Now Brief
This one isn’t as useful as the Now Bar, as it basically gives you a detailed look at your day. The Brief includes information about the weather, your reminders, your calendar, health information such as sleep quality, and more.
It will show up when you start your day, and provide suggestions throughout the day until you go to bed.
The Now Brief is not the most useful, to be honest
Press and Hold Power to Gemini
The best new AI feature on the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the rest of the Galaxy S25 phones is the inclusion of a system-wide Gemini. Simply press and hold the power button and you can ask Gemini anything, including details about what’s on your screen. You can also show Gemini a photo of anything that’s in front of you, and get recommendations.
Perhaps the most interesting feature is the ability to perform cross-app actions. You can give Gemini a specific set of instructions about a task and it will get it done, most of the time. For instance, you can ask Gemini to find a particular pair of shoes on the internet or an e-commerce app and then share it with a friend on WhatsApp. However, as of now, this functionality is only supported on Samsung’s built-in apps and Google apps. Samsung did promise to bring support to several third-party apps though, including WhatsApp.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra has AI agents for completing tasks
With natural language input available throughout the phone, you can also ask Gemini to look for a particular photo in your Gallery or find a specific Setting. For example, in the Settings app, you’re given an option to use voice to search for a particular setting even if you don’t know what it’s called. You could say ‘I want to reduce eye strain’ and the AI will show you the Eyecare settings.
You can talk on the phone in a natural language to get things done
All of this worked quite well on the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Improved Circle to Search
Google’s Circle to Search has also been improved and can now even understand audio. You can use the feature to get more information about a song that’s playing nearby. A new audio button is included next to the search bar in the Circle to Search pop-up dialogue. The results are certainly much more informative than simply knowing the name of a song. Search results will now also show Google’s AI Overviews.
AI Select
Next up, AI Select, which is a feature based on the already available Smart Select. This is available via the Sidebar and it now uses AI to understand what’s on your screen. You can use AI Select to get more information about something on the screen or summarise text.
You can use AI Select to turn a video into a GIF
It can also offer certain actions based on what’s on the display. When watching a YouTube video or an Instagram reel, you can bring up AI Select and create a GIF.
Generative AI features in Gallery
Samsung’s Gallery app also got some AI improvements. The object eraser is much better, and Sketch to Image now lets you add text inputs as well. The generative fill features on the Galaxy S25 Ultra are some of the best I’ve seen on smartphones, including the Google Pixel 9 series.
You can now input text to get output in Sketch to Image
There are a couple of more AI features available on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, including an Audio Eraser in Videos, which worked quite well in my testing. There’s also something called a Personal Filter, which lets you create a custom filter using any photo from the Gallery and apply it to other images.
It is to be noted that most of these features require an active internet connection, which means that Samsung is doing most of the work on the cloud. The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with six months of free Gemini Advanced subscription that includes 2TB of cloud storage.
Overall, the AI features, both old and new, worked really well in my testing. To find out more about the Galaxy S25 Ultra and whether it’s worth an upgrade, stay tuned to our full review.
