Written by Rob Waugh, Dailymail.Com Technology Correspondent
19:37 March 17, 2024, Updated 19:37 March 17, 2024
It's been just over a year since the world went crazy about AI with the release of ChatGPT.
It's no wonder, then, that tech giants now want to integrate and push artificial intelligence capabilities into all their new gadgets, from laptops to televisions.
But one of the biggest battlegrounds for AI is likely to be smartphones. Rumors are rife that Apple's next iPhone will come with a number of new features powered by AI.
Samsung and Google are also going all-in on AI in their phones, with the latest S24 Ultra and Pixel 8 Pro (released late this year and last year, respectively) both touting AI features heavily.
So, will AI actually improve your daily life?
I compared Google's flagship Pixel 8 Pro to Samsung's top-of-the-line model, the S24 Ultra, to see how the AI features stack up and whether they're actually useful in your daily life. .
google pixel
Google's Pixel smartphones have a head start in AI, with the tech giant already adding AI to features such as the Recorder app on previous Pixel smartphones, which uses AI to transcribe audio conversations in real-time. I can.
I've been using this for years. The audio transcripts aren't as “clean” as those offered by competing transcription services like Otter.ai, but as a journalist, being able to review the transcripts in real time is very useful.
This means that you can be sure that the recorder “understands” the conversation and (for example) decide whether there is enough information to end the call.
Google's Photos app also comes with AI tools like Magic Eraser, which can automatically remove photobombs from images.
It's a lot of fun, but sometimes it makes mistakes, like eliminating people on bikes but not the bikes.
Magic Editor lets you move and resize people in images by “filling” the background with generated AI. Being able to resize and move the shot of my son inside an optical illusion room covered in stripes is impressive.
I don't know yet if I'll use the results for a photo album.
The Best Take app is much more convenient, allowing you to take a bunch of similar shots and choose the “best” frame, so you don't end up with people's eyes going all the way or kids grimacing. Easy to use and works well.
A big Pixel innovation this year is AI wallpapers. It allows you to create strange and sometimes disturbing wallpapers using prompts such as “Expressionist-style robot painting.” It's pretty silly, but my kids are big fans.
How does Samsung's S24 ULTRA stack up?
Hardware-wise, Samsung's S24 Ultra is powered by a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, which outperforms the Pixel. But as a relative newcomer to phone-based AI, how can it compete?
Samsung's AI wallpaper feature works well, but it's pretty much the same as the Pixel's. That said, ever since I started using this, I've never gone back to non-AI wallpapers on my phone.
Similar to other AI image creators, you enter a series of words or prompts (but here you are limited to a preset range of words) and the AI creates a completely unique wallpaper based on your input. Create.
Samsung's Generative AI photo editing is pretty impressive for beginners, but it's a little more glitchy than Google's Magic tool, which I use (for example, there are some weird parts in the background after you remove yourself from a photo). (I found out that there is).
Circle to Search is unique to Samsung and is pretty cool. If you hold down the home button, you can search using images cut from literally any app (you can also pause the video and select an image).
Tap the screen or use the S Pen on your S24 to circle what you want to search for, and AI Smart will search for it on Google for you.
The results aren't all that different from what you get with Google Lens, but the select-and-search feature is new and cool (and feels very sci-fi-like).
Samsung's AI transcription app works well and provides clean transcriptions, but it lacks the live on-screen functionality like Google's app.
The phone app's built-in “Live Translate” feature also has a high cool factor, translating live on-screen from one language to another, instantly handling my grade school German.
If for some reason you need to call someone with whom you don't have a common language, this will make it easier (though it's hard to imagine a situation where this would happen).
Similar to the Pixel, there's also an AI-powered website summarization feature that cuts news articles into paragraphs (although given that most web pages tend to be fairly short and to the point). I'm not sure how helpful it is).
Samsung's Notes app is also packed with AI features, with options for automatic note formatting, bullet points, and summaries (features not available on Pixel), which are effective and useful for frequent note-takers. .
Samsung is clearly playing “catch-up” here, but the features are pretty good for a first time.
These two phones have completely different propositions. Samsung's phones are ridiculously powerful, with very high-end components, but with a price tag to match ($1299). Google's phones, on the other hand, offer great value for $999.
While Google has the lead (for now) on the AI front, Samsung is trying to match up with a number of interesting and potentially useful features.
What also seems certain is that AI will be a big part of future mobile phones. According to PitchBook, Apple has acquired 21 AI startups since 2017, and it seems likely that AI will be front and center in the iPhone, which will be released in September this year.