| The world's two biggest smartphone makers, Samsung and Apple, are going all in on generative AI. Take a look at Samsung's latest Galaxy Unpacked event in Paris, where the company debuted its latest foldable smartphones and espoused the benefits of its Galaxy AI platform.
Apple, meanwhile, spent the majority of its WWDC event in June focusing on how its Apple Intelligence generative AI software will power new features on its iPhones.
But the companies that, according to IDC, made up a combined 36.6% of the global smartphone market as of the second quarter of 2024 are taking decidedly different approaches to bringing generative AI to their users.
Samsung is angling to quickly build a large user base for its generative AI services, thus incentivizing developers to build apps for its Galaxy AI platform. And as those apps prove to be more capable and useful, Samsung will draw in more users.
Samsung's Galaxy AI features are available on this year's Galaxy S24, last year's S23, and 2022's Galaxy S22, not to mention three generations of its foldable phones. Overall, Samsung says it expects to put Galaxy AI on some 200 million devices by the end of the year. Apple, however, says only people who own its most powerful iPhones, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, and later iterations of the ubiquitous smartphone will get Apple Intelligence features.
Apple is banking on boosting iPhone sales in the near to medium term by getting users that are interested in generative AI apps to upgrade to the next generation of devices, rather than holding on to their current iPhones for years to come.
Despite the difference in approaches, both companies still need to prove to consumers that generative AI apps are worth the hype. And that will take time.
"Through 2025, if not a little bit longer, most of the purchasing would be purchasing that would have happened anyway as opposed to [people] running out because they need [AI] features," explained Ryan Reith, program vice president for IDC's Mobile Device Tracker suite.
Samsung vs .Apple
Samsung got the jump on Apple in the AI race, debuting its Galaxy AI platform, complete with a handful of Google's AI apps, alongside its Galaxy S24 line in January. Since then, the company says 77% of S24 users have used its AI capabilities at least once per week. So far, Samsung says Google's Circle to Search feature, which lets you snap photos of objects and text and circle them to identify or translate them, is among users' favorite AI options.
In addition to Google's Circle to Search, Samsung offers AI-powered translation, transcription, text composition, and photo editing apps. Of those, I find transcription to be the most useful. Photo editing, which lets you manipulate photos using generative AI, feels like more of a party trick than a must-have feature that people will use on a regular basis.
Still, those options are a start. And getting them into the hands of users and developers will inevitably help Samsung create more interesting and, importantly, useful AI offerings moving forward.
"I think Samsung is recognizing that they want to get [Galaxy AI] out there to as many people as they can," explained TECHnalysis Research president and chief analyst Bob O'Donnell.
"They want to get developers excited to create things for their platforms. And so this is a way to do that, because all of a sudden you've got a significantly larger install base with Samsung incorporating a few previous generations, whereas, obviously with Apple, it's going be a significantly smaller install base," he added.
Samsung's approach should incentivize developers eager to reach a large user base to begin building apps for its platform. And if those developers build engaging apps, users will inevitably opt for Samsung's devices to gain access to those apps. The approach isn't going to move smartphone units in the immediate future, but if customers like using apps built for Samsung's AI services, they'll be far more likely to purchase the company's devices when they're shopping for a new phone in the future.
Apple, however, isn't interested in waiting for phone sales to trickle in over time. The company clearly wants users to go buy its next-generation iPhone the moment it hits the market, likely this September. It makes sense for Apple. The iPhone is its most important product, and after sales declines in 2023 and a mixed start to 2024, getting new devices into consumers hands sooner rather than later is a must.
Wall Street is hoping the company's Apple Intelligence platform helps power a new sales cycle in the year ahead. And tying the software to the latest and greatest iPhones gives Apple a better chance of pulling that off.
But it also means it'll have a smaller install base of users for its generative AI products than Samsung. And that could hurt AI developers building on Apple's software, at least in the near term.
Do consumers really want generative AI?
All of this generative AI talk, though, won't be worth a thing if consumers don't actually understand it. While Samsung's early usage numbers are impressive, they only account for users that access its AI software once per week. Considering we pick up our phones dozens of times each day, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement just yet.
Anecdotally, my family and friends are still largely confused by what adding generative AI to their smartphones means for them. While Samsung and Apple have made splashy announcements, the average consumer, at least in so far as my own circle goes, doesn't quite get the whole concept quite yet.
For now we'll have to see how Apple pitches its Apple Intelligence during its expected iPhone event in September and how Samsung and Google continue to evolve their own messaging and offerings in the months ahead. | 
