There they were seated, the three proud parents of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Samsung, Google and Qualcomm. Samsung plays the most important parental role, but the three have given a guide hand in the creation of what could be said that it is more a mobile artificial intelligence device than a simple smartphone.
The executive vice president and head of the Samsung Client Experience Office, Jay Kim, the president of Google, Android Ecosystem, Sameer Samat, and the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Mobile Telephones of Qualcomm, Christopher Patrick, gathered on stage A day after the official Samsung Unpacked festivities where the company presented its new line. of Galaxy S25 telephones (four in total if we count the S25 edge object of mockery).
The group spoke extensively about its close collaboration and the practical aspects of giving life to a phone with AI. Samsung provides the design and most of the hardware, but it is Google who provides the subsystem, Android, the Gemini generative assistant and the Gemini models in which many depends on the main generative functions of the telephone. Finally, Qualcomm provided the telephone brain a personalized version of its fastest mobile chip: the Snapdragon Gen 8 Elite for Galaxy.
The group’s conversation was directed by the analyst Bob O’Donnell of Techalysis and joined the University of London and the Innovation Director of Symmetry, Dr. Chris Brauer.
The group described many night telephone calls and an almost constant discussion about how to integrate AI throughout the mobile system. Google is deeply involved in Samsung experience and its success, providing Samsung early access to Gemini’s latest models and functions.
That is why the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, which I am currently testing, has the latest edition of Circle to Search that can also identify sounds in videos and why Gemini Advanced’s latest version is available on all S25 phones as a test of six months. The triple association is the way Qualcomm built a special nucleus in the Snapdragon Gen 8 Elite to locally house the Samsung personal data engine.
The association is also the way in which my Ultra S25 can channel a single message through Google and Samsung’s own applications. This means that a single consultation can access both Google and Samsung Calendar, YouTube and Samsung Notes.
And that’s how the Samsung Galaxy S25 series is now a Gemini button.
A matter of trust
Samat de Google said that working so closely required a level of trust between organizations and a deep collaboration in every detail of the hardware and software experience.
Samat admitted: “We often do not agree. There was disagreement about how long the button should be pressed before the wizard appeared. ”
However, the group did not come into specific details. What we know is that Gemini takes perhaps a second and a half after the long pulsation to appear. Did Google want a longer pulsation? Samsung a shorter one? We may never know it, but it is clear that they resolved it satisfactorily.
As Samat pointed out, “a productive disagreement on product design is necessary.”
For his part, Patrick of Qualcomm also recalled “Night calls and occasional disagreements.”
When asked what keeps them awake at night, Kim by Samsung joked: “Apart from Samir calling (the same in Qualcomm), I never sleep.”
The brilliant and discouraging future of AI
Throughout the group, they are surprised (and perhaps a little intimidated) by the rhythm of change. “I have worked in this space for more than 20 years and I had never seen the type of advance we are experiencing now,” Samat said.
Patrick, from Qualcomm, said he hopes that, as an industry, “we will have the will to do what is necessary to work together and sometimes some natural competitors are needed to work together.”
This group and the industry have a lot of work ahead. Dr. Brauer, who has been following the industry, presented new figures that show a meteoric increase in consumers’ interest in just six months. A study conducted in July last year, at the time of the launch of the Galaxy AI, found that 16% of consumers identified as frequent and usual users of AI. Now the figure is 27%.
It seems that to meet this demand, the association – with disagreements and everything – is just beginning.
