Why Android-Makers Should Focus on the Phone and Leave AI to Google

CNET

3 days ago

If you've bought an Android phone in the past year, you've likely noticed that it's packed with AI features. Maybe you knew about them before you hit purchase, maybe you assumed (safely as it turns out) that there would be some kind of AI on your new phone, or maybe they took you totally by surprise.
If you bought a Samsung Galaxy S25, for example, you'll have had Gemini, Circle to Search, Bixby and Galaxy AI at your fingertips -- all before you even thought about downloading the ChatGPT app. It reminds me of the early days of Android, when phone-makers tried to load devices with their own apps, services and overwrought UIs in the name of differentiation. Which sparks the question: Is AI the new Android bloatware?
It's easy to understand why Android phone-makers have latched onto the idea that AI might be a useful tool to set them apart from rivals. After all, most flagship Android phones share the same DNA: a high-end processor (usually the top Snapdragon chip from Qualcomm), the latest Android software, a competitive camera system and a battery that will last for a day or more. The truth is that we're often splitting hairs when trying to recommend one over another.
When generative AI arrived on the scene, offering the potential to bring new experiences to mobile devices, Android phone-makers were keen to tap into those possibilities. Here was a new opportunity to differentiate themselves, and give people a fresh reason to choose them over a competitor. (And over the iPhone, as Apple slow-walks Apple Intelligence into being.)
In reality, it's not quite playing out that way -- and for a few different reasons. First, research conducted by CNET and supported by the findings of independent industry analysts consistently shows us that people aren't upgrading their phones due to the availability of AI features. Instead, the things they care about, in order of importance are price, longer battery life, storage, cameras. In other words, the same exact things they've prioritized for years when choosing a new phone.
The second issue is that in spite of some manufacturers' best efforts, AI isn't the differentiator they thought it would be. At the heart of this problem is that there's barely an Android phone hitting the market right now that doesn't already have the most cutting-edge tech built into it thanks to Google Gemini. Every Android phone maker has its own flavor of AI, but more often than not, this means a bunch of gimmicky features added onto the existing software in a haphazard fashion, creating something of a Frankenstein effect.
Early-mover advantage: Galaxy AI
Of all the Android phone-makers trying to make their own AI brand stick in our minds, it's perhaps Samsung that's in with the best chance. Compared to rivals, it was relatively early to jump onto the AI bandwagon, launching Galaxy AI in January 2024, giving it a strategic headstart that it's built on ever since.
Last week it followed the launch of its latest foldables with an AI forum, during which it revealed that 70% of Galaxy S25 owners were using Galaxy AI features. More than half, it added, were using Circle to Search. This year it will bring Galaxy AI to more than 400 million devices.
Android's Circle to Search feature originally launched on Samsung Galaxy S24 and Pixel 8 phones in January 2024.
Samsung/Screenshot by CNET
This all sounds positive, until you remember that Circle to Search is a Google feature, not a Samsung feature. Google, which makes the Android OS, often hands out temporary exclusives to Android phone-makers on new Gemini features, as it initially did with Circle to Search for Samsung in 2024. It did it again this year with an image-to-video generator, which debuted with Honor.
It's surely a nice sweetener for Google's relationships with phone-makers to be able to offer them these exclusives. But most of the standalone AI mobile tools we've seen grab the headlines are ultimately Gemini features made by Google, not the work of individual phone-makers, and it's only a matter of time before they become available on other Android devices – including Google's own Pixel phones.
To Google, "nothing is more important than Gemini," said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight. It is a "strategic pillar of the future of Google." And how better, he adds, to ensure its success than getting it into people's hands through the 3 billion Android phones in the marketplace (which puts Samsung's 400 million into perspective)?
Samsung might have the largest market share of any Android phone maker, but when you look at its reach compared to Google's, it's clear that Galaxy AI, which sits on top of Gemini, is at a competitive disadvantage.
Bonus AI
Of course Samsung and other Android phone-makers will say their own flavors of AI don't compete with Gemini, but complement it. And there is some validity in this idea.
It's rare that a phone maker attempts to replicate something Google has already done. Instead they look for opportunities to add their own AI twist -- often in the form of camera features. But whether they do this well enough for it to make any kind of meaningful impact on people's decisions to buy their phones is another question entirely.
This week, OnePlus began rolling out its own suite of AI features, announced back in May, to the OnePlus 13 and 13R. These include some photo tools and an AI content hub called Plus Mind to act as your memory for important information.
OnePlus' natural language search within "Mind Space" worked well for me.
Katie Collins/CNET
It would be a waste of time for OnePlus to replicate features in house that have already been developed by Google, said Arthur Lam in an interview at the software launch. A central part of the company's AI strategy is to "embrace and integrate [Google AI features] as fast as possible," he said.
"At the same time, we should have our own proposition, our own idea about what OnePlus AI should stand for," added Lam.
This is where Plus Mind comes in. It's an interesting first step from the company, although perhaps not quite as compelling as a company such as Motorola, which is investing in a LAM (large action model) -- as opposed to an LLM, or large language model -- that will respond to questions with actions, not just words. The idea is that it will use its understanding of your environment and reduce the number of interactions you need to have with your phone to order a coffee or an Uber, for example.
All roads lead to Gemini
As for Google, the company thinks it's "great" that phone makers are developing their own AI to complement the suite of tools it's providing them. That's what Sameer Samat, president of Android, told Tech Radar this week.
"If the features are great, it's more value for the consumers and more innovation," he said. "But I think for us, as Google, we want to make sure those two pieces [Circle to Search and Gemini] are very clearly accessible, very clearly identifiable across all the different devices that consumers are considering."
It's a revealing statement from Samat, supporting the theory that Google's ambition is to be the final boss of the AI smartphone experience. As Wood puts it: "All roads lead to Gemini."
Ultimately, it's not only Google's reach that is going to allow Gemini to be the dominant AI tool on Android phones, but the budget and talent the company has to dedicate to AI, which individual phone-makers just can't match.
This means that when it comes to differentiation, AI is unlikely to be the factor that sets brands such as Samsung and OnePlus apart. "Handset manufacturers are in danger of being left to compete more on brand and industrial design than AI features and capabilities," said Wood.
True differentiation: The Nothing story
One company that seems to have realized this is UK-based Nothing. Over the past year or so, I've attended, either in person or virtually, almost every major Android phone launch. One thing most of them have in common is a Google representative on stage espousing the many benefits of Gemini.
At the launch of the Nothing Phone 3 in London earlier this month, the company bucked this trend. Nothing still has a tiny market share -- around 0.2% as estimated by founder and CEO Carl Pei. But since its inception in 2022, it's managed to thrive and grow in a competitive, mature phone marketplace thanks largely due to its focus on design.
Nothing's focus on design sets it apart.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
That's not to say it's ignored AI, but it has taken a different approach. Earlier this year it launched "Essential Space," an AI-powered portal for storing and organizing everything important on your phone, from screenshots to calendar invites. It was a unique feature that's already been effectively copied by some other phone-makers (see OnePlus' efforts above).
Nothing does use Gemini, but it's not reliant on it in the same way its competitors are. "We don't want to do the model side," Pei explained to me at its Phone 3 launch earlier this month. "There's companies that are really good at it. They're very well funded and they're all competing against each other."
Instead, Nothing has built its AI platform to be "model agnostic," he said. "When the models get better, we just switch to the best one. Right now, I think it's powered by Gemini, but there's no stopping us from changing to the latest and greatest."
The uphill battle ahead
A flexible approach to AI seems like the safest bet at this time when the technology is changing minute by minute. It'll be an uphill battle for Android phone-makers to keep up, and hope their own efforts will remain relevant and prove useful as Google charges ahead offering best-in-class mobile AI experiences.
The real fight here is the same one we've seen play out for the past decade and a half: It's Apple versus Google. The true differentiation we're seeing in mobile AI right now is between Google Gemini and Apple Intelligence, with the former leading the field and the latter trailing in its wake.
For as long as Google attempts to aggressively build upon its early AI lead while holding the Android ecosystem in the palm of its hand, phone-makers will need to do more than just rely on AI to persuade us that their Android offering truly is the best of the best.