Galaxy AI technology has arrived, Samsung announced in the loudest way possible, but the company left out one small detail from its presentation earlier this week: It may come at a cost. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, S24 Plus, and S24 all include a variety of new AI features — everything from translating phone conversations to removing objects from photos. They will even come a lot Old phones too. but As spotted before Android Central, The fine print on Samsung's website reveals that it may not be free forever. This may be a tough sell.
Footnote at the bottom Galaxy S24 Ultra product page Vague, but clearly leaves the door open for Samsung to ship later: “Galaxy AI features will be made available for free through the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices. Different terms may apply to AI features offered by third parties.”
Samsung didn't provide much clarification either. says Drew Blackard, Samsung's US vice president of mobile phones the edge“We're committed to making Galaxy AI features available to as many of our users as possible. We won't consider any changes in this direction before the end of 2025. The coast is clear at the moment, but many of the Galaxy AI features in the S24 are enabled by Google Cloud, so either company —or both!—they could eventually put their features behind a paywall.
it's not also It's surprising when you consider how expensive it is to provide these features and run the large AI models that power them. Interested in trade pointing to Manufacturers may look to subscription models to pay for these ongoing costs, since you can't quite offset them with advertising the way Google does with search. But it represents a slight shift in the way we think about buying a phone — currently, it doesn't come with additional fees on top of the purchase price, unless you choose to add a protection plan or additional cloud storage through, say, iCloud or Google One.
But “How much does this phone cost?” This has been an infuriatingly difficult question to answer in the era of “free” or heavily subsidized cell phones, which is how many people in the United States get their devices. It's not too hard to imagine a future where monthly fees for advanced AI features are added to your wireless bill or folded into a paid cloud subscription.
So why wait until 2025? the Korea Herald I mentioned it in some comments From Samsung's head of mobile, TM Roh, who said that charging for AI services could become an option as they become more advanced — and more expensive to operate. This is the thing about AI; The way it has appeared so far on our phones has been very mediocre. These features can take a lot of time to process, but more importantly, they weren't very useful. If Samsung wants to charge for AI options in the future, it seems like the door is wide open, it'll just have to prove it's worth the price.
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