Our collaboration with @Google continues as we work towards a shared vision of delivering the best Android ecosystem of products and services. Exciting things are coming up for the future of AI-powered Android and Galaxy experiences. https://t.co/QNvFEiSq9u
— Samsung Mobile (@SamsungMobile) April 25, 2024
During its developer conference Galaxy Unpacked in San Jose, Samsung has announced a partnership with Google Cloud to bring its generative AI (GenAI) to Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones.
The move will make Samsung the first Google Cloud partner to integrate Google’s Gemini Pro AI in consumer technology. Released in December 2023, Gemini is Google’s largest AI model yet and is already powering Google’s AI chatbot Bard.
Samsung Galaxy users will be able to edit photos using Google’s Gemini and an AI chatbot will be available within the device.
Google’s search engine has also been further integrated into the phone. Gemini AI will allow users to circle and search within images on their phone screen.
“With Gemini, Samsung’s developers can leverage Google Cloud’s world-class infrastructure, cutting-edge performance, and flexibility to deliver safe, reliable, and engaging generative AI powered applications on Samsung smartphone devices,” said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
As much google and samsung want to bring the latest and exciting technology to their users, it posses a potential risks to users privacy.Smartphone AI security and privacy is largely dependent on the on-device/off-device spectrum. At which point and for which offerings does the handset back your data off to the cloud where more heavyweight processing can be utilized. The trade off is that this AI might be working from sensitive prompts or even analyzing personal data. And while analyzing this on your phone is one thing, pushing it elsewhere is another
This delineation is even more critical for two reasons—first, that the prompts and data shared with the cloud may well be stored, used for AI model training and even accessed by human reviewers; and second, that the privacy policies associated with the patchwork quilt of smartphone AI offerings are varied, confusing and complex.
But unlike Apple’s end-to-end control of its iPhone ecosystem, Samsung’s is built on Android, and Android comes from Google, and Google is cloud-centric by design.
Android/Samsung marriage creates an AI complexity for Samsung. Whether mostly perception or reality, Android is seen to trail iPhone when it comes to privacy and security, and Samsung is impacted.
Apple has been developing a large language model... and all indications suggest that it will be entirely on-device. That means the technology is powered by the processor inside the iPhone, rather than in the cloud... And it will be easier for Apple to maintain privacy.
This suggests that Apple’s AI tools may be a bit less powerful and knowledgeable in some cases—the company could fill in the gaps by teaming up with Google and other AI providers,” but that suggests such offerings will be taken out of the core OS and will be provided as over-the-top AI apps and services instead. Much like today, where Apple’s own ecosystem is more locked down than third-party apps.
