Aside from its new hardware, the biggest addition to the S24 Ultra is Samsung\u2019s Galaxy AI features, which are an entire suite of tools that fall into three main categories: text and translation, photography and editing, and search.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an interpreter mode for in-person conversations along with a live translation feature that you can use during calls. Both are good enough to use in a pinch while traveling, but some things like word choice and pacing may be a bit off. The experience can also feel a bit clunky, especially when you\u2019re on the phone and have to wait so the AI can catch up.<\/p>\n

Next, you have Chat Assist which can check spelling, grammar and<\/em>adjust the tone of messages. Admittedly, the social and emojify options are a bit gimmicky, but I genuinely appreciate the polite and professional choices, as they can help prevent a text or email from sounding combative.<\/p>\n

In the Notes app, the S24U can also summarize, auto-format, spellcheck or translate a file, which is nice, but not exactly groundbreaking. A lot of these features are already available from other services like ChatGPT or Bard. That said, these improvements may be the biggest upgrades to the S24 Ultra\u2019s S-Pen, which is otherwise largely unchanged.<\/p>\n

Out of Samsung\u2019s text-based tools, my favorite is the transcription feature in the Voice Recorder app. It makes grabbing quotes from interviews super simple, though I noticed that Samsung\u2019s UX doesn\u2019t feel quite as polished or streamlined as what you get from Google. For example, the Pixel Recorder lets you see the transcript in real-time, while on the Ultra, you have to record a convo and then hit the AI icon to generate a chat log when you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n

The AI can also suggest edits for images like automatically remastering images (which is similar to the Auto Tone feature in Photoshop) or removing distracting elements like shadows and reflections. You can see these options by hitting the Info icon in the gallery app, which makes them super easy to access and might be the fastest way to improve your photos. The S24 Ultra can also create slow-mo clips from existing footage, just by tapping and holding on a video while it\u2019s playing. This triggers the phone\u2019s AI to generate new frames based on the fps of the recording (i.e. from 30 fps to 120 fps) on the fly and the results are surprisingly smooth.<\/p>\n

If you prefer a more hands-on approach, there are Generative AI edits that allow you to reframe shots, move subjects around or delete them entirely, while the phone fills in the blanks. It\u2019s a simple but effective process that sidesteps the need for Photoshop in a lot of cases. That said, if you look close you may notice areas where Samsung\u2019s AI misses more details than the Pixel 8\u2019s Magic Editor, which is a trend I noticed across a lot of Samsung\u2019s AI features.<\/p>\n

All of the new tools generally function as expected, but things don\u2019t feel quite as streamlined or polished as a lot of Google\u2019s alternatives. In the Notes app, there\u2019s a word limit for auto-formatting, summarizing and more, which limits you to about three or four paragraphs at a time. That means if you have a medium-sized doc, you\u2019re gonna have to tackle it in chunks, which gets tedious pretty quickly. And sometimes if you try to highlight areas of a photo to remove reflections, the phone will smooth over the entire area and paint over the details.<\/p>\n

In other situations, the AI will suggest edits that don\u2019t make sense, like trying to turn a short motion photo into a timelapse. It\u2019s possible this was my fault for importing a photo taken by another device, but I feel like the phone ought to know better. The AI is meant to work on any photo, regardless of where it came from. Even moving subjects around in a pic can get wonky depending on the shot and what you\u2019re trying to do. And every now and then, the phone will suggest you remaster a photo, only for it to tell you that there\u2019s nothing to fix. As a photographer, that\u2019s a great feeling. But at the same time, why am I being told there are things to fix if that\u2019s not actually the case? But, this is Samsung\u2019s first big push into AI-assisted features, so it shouldn’t be a shock to see a handful of hiccups.<\/p>\n