A Comment: Android phone makers want their phones to stand out as much as possible. For now, though, AI that isn’t made by Google might not be the best way to do it.
If you got an Android phone last year, you may have noticed that it has a lot of AI features. You may have known about them before you bought the phone, or you may have safely assumed that your new phone would have some kind of AI. On the other hand, they may have completely caught you off guard.
Say you got a Samsung Galaxy S25. You would have had Gemini, Circle to Search, Bixby, and Galaxy AI available to you before you even thought about getting the ChatGPT app. It makes me think of the early days of Android, when phone companies tried to push their own apps, services, and complicated user interfaces on phones to make them stand out. And this makes me wonder: Is AI the new Android junkware?
It’s easy to see why companies that make Android phones are interested in AI as a way to differentiate themselves from competitors. After all, most top-of-the-line Android phones have the same parts: a fast processor (usually Qualcomm’s top Snapdragon chip), the most up-to-date Android software, a good camera system, and a battery that lasts at least a day. When we try to pick one over another, we’re really just focusing on small details.
When creative AI came out and promised to give mobile devices new experiences, companies that make Android phones were eager to take advantage of the chance. There was a new chance for them to set themselves apart and give people a new reason to pick them over a rival. (And on the iPhone, while Apple slowly builds Apple Intelligence)
It’s not quite going that way, and there are a few different reasons for that. In the first place, data from CNET and other independent industry experts regularly shows that people aren’t upgrading their phones just because they have AI features. What they really care about are price, better battery life, storage, and cameras, in that order. To put it another way, the same things they’ve looked at for years when picking out a new phone.
Second, some makers have tried hard to make AI the difference they thought it would be, but it hasn’t worked out that way. The main issue here is that thanks to Google Gemini, almost every new Android phone already has the newest technology built in. Every Android phone maker has their own version of AI, but most of the time, this just means adding a bunch of useless features to the software without any planning, giving it a Frankenstein-like look.
Advantage for early adopters: Galaxy AI
Samsung may have the best chance of all the Android phone companies that want to make their own AI brand stand out with us. When it comes to competitors, Samsung was one of the first to use AI. It released Galaxy AI in January 2024, which gave it a strategic headstart that it’s built on ever since.
At an AI meeting last week, it was announced that 70% of Galaxy S25 users were using the phone’s AI features. This came after the launch of its newest folding phones on Monday. It also said that more than half were using Circle to Search. It will be on more than 400 million smartphones this year.
Everything sounds good until you remember that Circle to Search is a Google feature and not a Samsung feature. Google, which makes the Android OS, often gives Android phone makers limited rights to new Gemini features. For example, in 2024, Google gave Samsung the first chance to use Circle to Search. It did it again this year with Honor, which was the first phone to have an image-to-video creator.
If Google can give these exclusives to phone makers, it must make their ties with Google better. But most of the AI mobile tools that have been in the news lately are actually Gemini features made by Google, not by individual phone makers. It will only be a matter of time before they’re available on other Android devices, like Google’s own Pixel phones.
CEO of CCS Insight Ben Wood said, “Nothing is more important to Google than Gemini.” It’s a “strategic pillar of the future of Google.” Getting it into people’s hands through the 3 billion Android phones on the market (which puts Samsung’s 400 million in perspective) is also a good way to make sure it succeeds, he says.
Samsung may have the biggest part of the Android phone market, but when you compare its reach to Google’s, it’s clear that Galaxy AI, which is built on top of Gemini, isn’t as good as it could be.
Bonus AI
Samsung and other companies that make Android phones will, of course, say that their own types of AI don’t compete with Gemini but instead work with it. And there is some truth to this thought.
When phone companies try to copy something Google has already done, it’s not often successful. Instead, they look for ways to add their own AI twist, which usually comes in the form of camera features. One thing that’s not clear is whether they do this well enough for it to have any effect on people’s decisions to buy their phones.
OnePlus started adding its own set of AI features to the OnePlus 13 and 13R this week. These features were first mentioned by OnePlus in May. Among these are picture tools and Plus Mind, an AI content hub that can help you remember important things.
“It would be a waste of time for OnePlus to build features that Google has already made,” said Arthur Lam in an interview at the launch of the software. He said that one of the most important parts of the company’s AI plan is to “embrace and integrate [Google AI features] as quickly as possible.”
“At the same time, we should have our own proposition, our own idea about what OnePlus AI should stand for,” said Lam.
This is where Plus Mind comes in. Motorola is investing in a LAM (large action model) instead of an LLM (large language model) that will answer questions with actions instead of just words. This is an interesting first step from the company, but it might not be as good of an idea. The idea is that it will use what it knows about your surroundings to cut down on the number of times you have to use your phone to do things like order an Uber or a coffee.
Gemini is where it all starts.
“If the features are great, it’s more value for the consumers and more innovation,” he stated. “But I think for us, as Google, we want to make sure those two pieces [Circle to Search and Gemini] are very clearly accessible, very clearly identifiable across all the different devices that consumers are considering.”
Samat’s comment is very telling and supports the idea that Google wants to be in charge of the whole AI smartphone experience. This is what Wood says: “All roads lead to Gemini.”
Google’s reach and the money and people the company has to spend on AI are what will make Gemini the best AI tool for Android phones in the end. Individual phone makers simply can’t compete with that.
This means that AI probably won’t be what makes brands like Samsung and OnePlus stand out. “Handset manufacturers are in danger of being left to compete more on brand and industrial design than AI features and capabilities,” Wood said.
Real difference: The story of Nothing
Nothing, which is based in the UK, seems to believe this. In the past year or so, I’ve been to almost every big Android phone launch, either in person or online. One thing that most of them have in common is that Google is there promoting all the great things about Gemini.
The company went against the grain at the launch of the Nothing Phone 3 in London earlier this month. The market share of nothing is still very small. Founder and CEO Carl Pei says
it’s about 0.2%. But since its start in 2022, it’s been able to live and grow in a mature and competitive phone market, thanks partly to its focus on design.
Not that it hasn’t thought about AI, but it has approached it in a different way. This year, it released “Essential Space,” a site driven by AI that lets you store and organize all the important things on your phone, from photos to calendar calls. It was a unique trait that has already been copied by some phone companies (see more about OnePlus above).
Gemini is used by Nothing, but it’s not as important to it as its rivals are. “We don’t want to do the model side,” Pei told me a month ago at the launch of the Phone 3. “Some businesses are really good at it. They all have a lot of money and are fighting with each other.
The AI engine that Nothing has built is “model agnostic,” he said. “We just switch to the best model when they get better.” “I believe it’s running on Gemini at the moment, but we can easily switch to the newest and best.”
The hard fight that lies ahead
When technology changes every minute, it seems like the best thing to do with AI right now is to be open to new ideas. Android phone makers will have to work hard to keep up and hope that their own efforts will continue to be useful as Google leads the way with the best mobile AI experiences.
The real fight is between Apple and Google, which we’ve seen happen over and over again for the past 15 years. Right now, the real difference in mobile AI is between Google Gemini and Apple Intelligence. Google Gemini is ahead of the competition, and Apple Intelligence is far behind.
Google is trying hard to build on its early AI lead while also controlling the Android environment. This means that phone makers will need to do more than just use AI to convince us that their Android product is the best.
Disclaimer
This post is based on publicly available information, expert opinions, and my personal analysis of recent trends in the Android smartphone industry. It is not sponsored by or affiliated with Google, Samsung, OnePlus, or any other company mentioned. All brand names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.