BGR
Like many others, Samsung wants to make the most of the artificial intelligence (AI) buzzwords now that ChatGPT has revolutionized that tech landscape. The company has confirmed it’ll launch an “AI phone” next year, and it has unveiled its Samsung Gauss AI platform. I’ve long speculated that the Galaxy S24 will be the first handset to launch with generative AI features built-in. That the next-gen Galaxy S flagship will be Samsung’s first AI phone.
Samsung will probably avoid addressing the matter until mid-January when the Galaxy S24 launch should take place. But the Korean giant has done something that implies the Galaxy S24 will be its first-ever AI phone. You’d better be sitting down for this, as Samsung is looking to trademark “AI Phone” and “AI Smartphone” in the European Union (EU) and the UK.
It’s an incredibly bold move but also a pointless one. There’s no way regulators will award such generic trademarks to Samsung or anybody else in the space. Any smartphone with AI features on board, whether they run locally or via an app, qualifies as an “AI Phone” and “AI Smartphone.”
You might say the Pixel 8 series brings the first AI phones, as Google made a big deal of specific AI features during the launch event. Some of those features might already be available on the handsets. Others might take a while to arrive.
But the iPhone 15 is an AI phone as well. The same goes for any other iPhone that can run the official ChatGPT app. And any Android device out there, whether it’s made by Samsung, Google, or a different entity. Not to mention that most phones have had built-in AI features before ChatGPT. They were not generative AI experiences, but that’s not the only version of AI.
Finally, I’ll point out that nobody will refer to any smartphone as an AI Phone. Unless, of course, someone launches a device called AI Phone.
Still, Samsung’s decision to attempt to trademark AI Phone and AI Smartphone should not be overlooked. Found by Dutch blog GalaxyClub, the trademark applications imply two things. First, that Samsung will make a very big deal about AI phones in the coming year. Secondly, and related to the first, the Galaxy S24 should be AI phones.
You don’t go through all this trouble without ensuring your most important flagship series isn’t the first to feature generative AI features.
Again, it’s not just the trademark applications that Samsung filed earlier this week. Samsung also unveiled the Gauss AI platform and demoed a call translation AI feature well ahead of the Galaxy S24’s introduction event. These are the kind of actions meant to draw attention to Samsung and drive speculation that the Galaxy S24 will be an AI phone.
The trademark documentation is just the cherry on top. Expect to hear Samsung say AI phone and AI smartphone a lot during the Galaxy S24, regardless of what happens with the trademarks. And, likely, Samsung will not get the trademarks for either.
