Samsung Galaxy AI will not be coming to devices released before 2023

The new Galaxy S24 series offers a set of artificial intelligence features in Samsung's One UI Android interface, and these features will be available in some older devices. However, in a new interview, Samsung confirmed that Galaxy AI won't be coming to anything released before 2023, and the reason has nothing to do with the hardware.

The new “Galaxy AI” lineup on the Samsung Galaxy S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra packs a variety of different AI-enabled features. This includes using generative AI to make advanced image edits, transcribe and translate audio recordings, create a summary from notes, and translate or create new versions of your chat conversations. One feature can also translate a phone call in real time, entirely on the device.

During the launch event, Samsung directly confirmed that Galaxy AI will be coming to some older devices. These include:

Galaxy S23
Galaxy S23+
Galaxy S23 Ultra
Galaxy S23 FE
Galaxy Tab S9
Galaxy Tab S9+
Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra
Galaxy Z Fold 5
Galaxy Z Flip 5

However, what's missing from this list is anything released before 2023. The Galaxy S22 series, Fold 4, Flip 4, and several other devices are also missing. And talk to Tech RadarSamsung confirmed that this will not change any time soon.

In a statement, Samsung's head of customer experience, Patrick Chomet, explains that Galaxy AI won't be coming to any devices before the Galaxy S23, at least for now. He explains:

We want to make sure that our AI experiments can be supported over time [mobile] Performance, which leads to the capacity of the CPU and GPU. So far, we're learning. We are going step by step. We know Galaxy AI works well on the Galaxy S24 series and we know it will work well on them [the Galaxy S23 series]. But we don't know how intensive the use of AI will be for the average customer [therefore how that] Density will affect on-device and cloud resources.

First, we want to ensure the quality and performance of what we publish. Then we will learn how people use it [these features] And performance tuning. Number two, we're going to spread out [Galaxy AI] On a second set of devices — specifically the S23, S23 FE, Z Fold 5, Z Flip 5, and Tab S9 — to see how they work.

It's a pretty reasonable explanation, except for one major point. When one of the reasons is mentioned as whether or not the device's performance can handle AI features, Samsung is talking about a wide variety of different devices. The Galaxy S23 FE in particular is an odd case, as the device is powered by the Exynos 2200, the same chipset found in the Galaxy S22 series in select regions.

When pressed on the matter, Chomet simply said: “Right now, we're limiting Galaxy AI to last-gen devices.”

So, hardware doesn't seem to be the only reason Samsung is limiting these features to newer devices.

Although Samsung does not say so directly, we expect the company's reason here to be related to cost. Some Galaxy AI features run entirely on-device, but most require back-end work in the cloud, specifically on Google's Gemini models, and that's not free. Samsung itself is touting that these features may eventually require payment, but there's no word on when that might take effect. The company also pretty much hints that this will be the case by noting that it doesn't know “the impact… [on] Cloud resources.”

The Samsung Galaxy S24 series is Available for pre-order nowstarting Priced at $799. Pre-orders come with double the storage space, boosted trade-ins of up to $750, and an additional credit of up to $150.

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