Samsung Galaxy S25 series smartphones make “personalized AI” a key feature

Samsung’s newest flagship smartphones are powered by a “customized” version of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which Samsung says brings the “most powerful NPU” available in an Android smartphone, enabling support for private, on-device AI features including a “Personal Data Engine” that lets use your voice to search for pictures, get personalized news briefings, or a “Now Bar” on the lock screen that displays info and suggested apps or actions that change throughout the day.

That doesn’t mean all of the AI features for the new Samsung Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+, and Galaxy S25 Ultra will use on-device processing or Samsung-specific technologies. The phones have a button that you can press to activate Google’s Gemini AI assistant, for example, and they support Google’s Circle to Search feature. But at a time when pretty much every flagship phone supports some sort of AI, Samsung wants you to believe that its implementation is the best.

Don’t care much about AI? In addition to a 40% boost in NPU performance over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip used in Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series phones, the new Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor promises a 37% boost in CPU performance and 30% faster graphics.

Samsung says it brings support for better image upscaling and ray tracing. And the phone has a larger vapor chamber for improved cooling, allowing the phone to run smoothly even when running demanding tasks.

The top of the line Galaxy S25 Ultra is also the first smartphone to feature Corning Gorilla Armor 2, an anti-reflective, scratch-resistant glass ceramic cover for the phone’s body.

Here’s an overview of some key specs for Samsung’s new Galaxy S25 series phones:

Samsung also teased an upcoming model called the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, which is expected to be an ultraslim phone that could possibly compete with the rumored Apple iPhone 17 Air.