I went hands-on with Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra, and it feels surprisingly intelligent

When I saw the Galaxy S25 Ultra, I couldn’t believe that Samsung’s vision for smartphones was exactly what I had just seen a few minutes earlier. The Galaxy S25 Ultra may seem familiar at first, but inside, it takes the shape of a new smartphone by heavily integrating AI into the core experience — a step toward an app-less interface where AI agents and personalisation may become the new default on mobile.

I spent a few minutes with the Galaxy S25 Ultra at the Samsung Unpacked event, and here’s my early experience with the device.

Galaxy AI steals the show

The drawing assist feature on the Galaxy S25 Ultra has been more refined, and now it also understands your text or voice for prompts. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

When Samsung began integrating AI into its Galaxy smartphones last year, I felt it was never cohesive. Despite the numerous features rolled out as part of Galaxy AI, the experience seemed disjointed, rather than something deeply integrated into the operating system. With the Galaxy S25, Samsung has made an effort to tightly integrate AI features into the interface, marking a sort of second step in the Galaxy AI rollout. I hope that the interactions become more natural and intuitive, rather than AI being merely a showcase feature.

In fact, I have been using AI features across multiple platforms and different types of devices, but not all AI features are created equally, and I’ve come to terms with that. However, when it comes to smartphones, AI needs to work seamlessly, blending with the interface rather than feeling out of place. I’m not going to download a new app for every new AI feature, especially with the glut of AI models and the avalanche of new generative AI capabilities. To me, as a user, this has caused overlap and confusion about which AI features exist and what problems they’re solving.

Samsung seems to have realised this, which is perhaps why it has taken a new approach to establish more consistency with AI features on the Galaxy S25. Yes, there are still a lot of AI features (especially considering those added in the past few months), but the second wave of AI features is more purposefully designed. For example, think of a GIF maker. Previously, I had to download apps like Canva or Giphy to create GIFs. However, on the Galaxy S25, creating a GIF from a YouTube video is just one step away. By selecting a video and hovering over the part you want to capture, a GIF can be crafted in mere seconds and then shared with friends or added to a presentation or story.

Or take adding an event to the calendar, for example. I typically receive hundreds of launch invites a month, and they often get lost in my inbox (given how many emails I get in a day). But on the Galaxy S25, AI understands the context of the email (it scans the text), and a quick follow-up action asks me if I want to save event details to my calendar. Now, that’s something useful, and I would be using this feature more frequently than paraphrasing a sentence.

During my hands-on experience, I saw a more sophisticated use of artificial intelligence with multimodal AI agents that take actions on your behalf: moving away from directly interacting with websites or apps, and instead interacting with a generative AI system that does it for you.

The new feature of the Galaxy S25 Ultra is the Audio Eraser, which cleans up unwanted noise in the background. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

In a demo, a Samsung executive showed how AI agents work on the Galaxy S25 Ultra. The executive long-pressed the side button on the Galaxy S25 Ultra to activate Gemini, and using her voice, she asked the AI to “find me a flight schedule from Seoul to New Delhi for next week and send it to Tony.” In response, the AI presented a list of flight options for the next week, and the AI agent asked if the ticket options could be sent to Tony via email or message. This whole process could have easily taken 20 minutes, but with the help of AI, it took less than 5 minutes. Google’s Gemini did the heavy lifting here, which was very clearly visible. The executive said that Gemini is deeply integrated into the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

I would like to see how Google and Samsung improve the capabilities of AI agents within the device itself, so these virtual agents can become more proficient at tasks I dislike doing myself, such as filling out forms or finding the best stocks to invest in and mailing me the list before the stock market opens. The possibilities are endless, I would say. However, on mobile, if AI agents take off, they could also change the search landscape.

Samsung executives took me through a bunch of AI features, and while it’s a task to mention each of them, one AI feature that caught my eye was Audio Eraser, which works with videos. You can open a video on the Galaxy S25 that you think might have too much ambient noise in the background, and the AI will analyse six different types of sounds depending on the video. In a demo, the executive picked a video of a man playing the piano in a restaurant, and the AI detected different sounds. You can completely block ambient sound, mute music, mute voices, or mute crowds. I would say the feature is very thoughtful, as I record a lot of such videos and often struggle with ambient noises in the background.

After briefly trying out the Galaxy S25 Ultra, I realised that Samsung is trying to include new features that use voice, making everyday interactions quicker. In the demo, the executive used his voice to find a photo in the gallery. Whether it’s AI agents or the use of voice, I believe there has been an effort to make the smartphone smarter. At the same time, I can also see how searching for information within the phone is changing.

Sleeker phone, bigger display

Samsung’s One7 UI cleans up the interface, as it brings AI right into the core experience. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

The new Galaxy S25 Ultra features a bigger display with thinner bezels, revamped cameras, better battery life, a powerful processor, an S Pen, and One UI 7, built atop Android 15. Holding the phone for a few minutes, the S25 Ultra felt slightly thinner and lighter (down from the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s 233 gram), although it has a bigger 6.9-inch screen. It still has a unique body design, but with flatter edges and more prominent rings around the camera lenses.

Inside, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which Samsung claims offers a 40 per cent boost in NPU, 37 per cent in CPU, and 30 per cent in GPU performance compared to the previous generation. I am particularly looking forward to the new Galaxy AI features that Samsung demoed during the Unpacked event for the S25 Ultra. The larger display and more powerful processor (up to 12 GB RAM and 1 TB storage on the top-end model) mean that many tasks I typically do on a computer can now be handled directly on the phone.

The camera system on the Galaxy S25 Ultra has been upgraded as well. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

The Galaxy S25 Ultra also features improved cameras, including a new 50-megapixel ultrawide camera with a brighter f/1.9 aperture lens. This upgrade is a significant improvement over the 12-megapixel version found on the Galaxy S24 Ultra and should dramatically increase detail in ultrawide photos, especially in close-up macro shots. Additionally, there’s a 200-megapixel wide camera and a 50-megapixel telephoto lens. The camera setup looks promising, but it’s hard to fully assess in a quick hands-on session. I can see why Samsung is trying to send out a message that its cameras on the S25 Ultra are to beat.

With the Galaxy S25 Ultra, I have a feeling that Samsung has changed its messaging about how it wants its top-end, pro-grade smartphones to be perceived. Yes, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a pro-centric smartphone, with best-in-class hardware and specs to beat. However, the added layer of Galaxy AI makes the smartphone more intelligent, designed for a natural and personalised mobile experience. Perhaps the Galaxy S25 Ultra is the beginning of a new type of smartphone — the app-less, voice-driven, AI-heavy interface. I am sure Samsung is still figuring out how to make that a reality.