Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Galaxy S25 Phones First to Feature Google's Project Astra AI Tech

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The Samsung Galaxy S25 will be the first family of phones to include Google’s Project Astra, the company announced Wednesday at Samsung’s Unpacked 2025 event. This gives the phone the ability to analyze the world around it through its camera and provide personalized answers to questions that chatbots can’t replicate.  Project Astra is a part of Googe’s Gemini 2.0 which was announced at the 2024 Google I/O.  

Google Deepmind CEO and co-founder Demis Hassabis noted that the company had begun to expand its Trusted tester program for Project Astra, which he called the company’s “research prototype exploring the future capabilities of a universal AI assistant.”

 “And now, we’re so excited to be partnering with Samsung to bring some of its groundbreaking capabilities to the Gemini app,” Hassabis said. “I’m delighted to announce that screen sharing and live video streaming is coming first to Android and the Galaxy S25 series.”

The addition, he said, will allow users to ask Gemini to reason about things that the users see, whether on a phone or in the world around them.

Read more: Best Pre-Order Deals for the New Samsung S25 Smartphone

Hassabis went on to show off some of the features. In one example, a user would be able to show Gemini a photo of themselves wearing size 38 pants, and ask if it thinks a size 36 would fit. Another example was to walk someone through performing the windowpane test on a piece of dough while working on a recipe. 

“Our partnership with Samsung will help the future of AI through new form factors, like glasses or headsets to more agentic capabilities, like the ability to take actions on your behalf,” Hassabis said.

In CNET’s hands-on with Project Astra, we noted that Project Astra had tons of potential as it was both faster and smoother than Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses with its built-in AI. However, it may raise privacy concerns since it’ll use the camera on the phone to see the world around it. Google says it’s helping here by having tools built-in to prevent users from sharing personal data on accident.

The Galaxy S25 gets more AI

In addition to Project Astra, the Galaxy S25 family is also getting a slew of other AI features. Some examples include the new AI Select tool that will suggest actions based on what’s on your phone screen while the photo gallery app will support conversational inquiries so you can find specific photos just by asking. 

The Galaxy S25 is available for pre-order now and will be shipped on Feb. 7.

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