Samsung Electronics President Roh Tae-moon speaks during a press conference held in San Jose, California, on Wednesday. (Samsung Electronics)
Samsung Electronics President Roh Tae-moon speaks during a press conference held in San Jose, California, on Wednesday. (Samsung Electronics)

Samsung Electronics’ mobile head Roh Tae-moon said the South Korean tech titan’s latest flagship smartphone lineup has initiated the “true beginning of the artificial intelligence phone era.”

“The Galaxy S25 series, powered by multimodal AI capabilities, offers the most natural and seamless mobile experience ever, enabling users to interact with their devices as if conversing with a friend,” Roh said during a press conference held in San Jose, California, on Wednesday, following the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2025 event.

The mobile chief stressed that while the smartphone era has been defined by app usage and touch-based interactions, the AI phone era represents a shift to multimodal AI, where services are intuitively tailored to users’ needs.

“The transformation begins with the Galaxy S25 series,” he said.

Samsung introduced its first AI functionalities with the Galaxy S24 series last year, but this year’s model takes the technology to a new level, incorporating what Roh described as a “true AI companion.”

“The S24 series enhanced individual features with AI intelligence,” Roh said. “However, the S25 series enables AI to seamlessly navigate across apps, delivering results effortlessly and naturally -- just like a human assistant. This marks the start of an AI companion era.”

He showed confidence that the Galaxy S25 series would outperform its predecessor in sales, citing a growing global appetite for AI-integrated mobile devices.

“Market expectations for mobile AI are high, and the overall market for AI-enabled devices is projected to grow threefold this year compared to last year,” he said. “AI phones are set to drive the next wave of innovation in the mobile industry.”

Samsung has decided to freeze domestic pricing for the S25 series despite rising exchange rates. The Galaxy S25 series has maintained its price also in major countries such as the US and Europe.

The mobile chief said it was not an easy decision, but hoped to ensure that the newly introduced mobile AI Galaxy could be represented as an AI agent and believed that Korea’s widespread adoption of AI agent experiences could have a global impact.

He also hinted at Samsung’s ongoing development of a tri-foldable smartphone and smart glasses, as briefly teased in the Galaxy S25 launch video.

“We are continuously exploring new form factors and preparing to launch them as part of an ecosystem, not standalone products,” Roh said. “When these devices reach the necessary level of maturity, we will bring them to market.”

Additionally, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S25 Edge, which is equipped with AI capabilities and is known to be the slimmest model in the Galaxy series' history. The device revives the iconic "Edge" branding from the 2014 Galaxy Note series.

The S25 Edge is set for release within the first half of 2025. Additionally, Samsung plans to launch an extended reality headset, developed in collaboration with Google under the codename "Project Moohan," meaning "infinity" in Korean, later this year.