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Summary
At its recent Galaxy Unpacked event, Samsung didn’t just unveil new hardware – the smartphone giant also made a slew of announcements on how it will enrich its mobile ecosystem by way of expanded partnerships with Qualcomm and Google, and by the introduction of new artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. As Samsung is a leading provider of smartphones across both consumer and enterprise segments, analyzing the announcements from the event offers insights into how they could be set to disrupt business mobility. Recent Omdia data also shows that 77% of businesses view enabling employees to work and collaborate via mobile devices as being more important now than two years ago, highlighting how critical mobile enhancements are to modern work.
This piece explores the broader, strategic business implications of the announcements made by Samsung at the Galaxy Unpacked event, and the potential challenges and opportunities enterprises, vendors, and service providers delivering mobile services may encounter.
Why the Samsung and Google partnership is significant
One of the more notable announcements made by Samsung was an enhanced collaboration with Google. The Google partnership will see Gemini’s Advanced AI models become integrated across some of Samsung’s flagship mobile devices, including the newly announced S25 series. The implementation of Samsung’s mobile AI services will vary, based on functionality, between being on device and cloud based. Collectively, however, these services will enhance device capabilities and enrich mobile worker use cases through features such as speech-to-text and real-time translations. While the full suite of AI capabilities extends across on-device and cloud-based services, users will have the option to disable certain cloud-based AI features if they choose. Gemini Live requires cloud access as well as some more consumer-focused features such as Draw Assist and Sticker Generation. Other new features that are more personal to users are all on device, such as AI Select, Now Brief and Now Bar. By enabling users to switch to on-device processing only, Samsung is catering to users and businesses that may have data privacy concerns.
This capability also presents vendors offering business solutions that support mobility management with new opportunities and challenges, including unified endpoint management (UEM) solutions such as Intune and Omnissa. Businesses adopting these solutions will increasingly expect them to deliver new policy controls and features that help them manage and secure on-device AI features in a fashion similar to how these tools currently manage other mobile devices and app policies. This will become an important capability as mobile AI models and processing become more popular.
Samsung’s new mobile AI capabilities
Samsung announced that it will leverage both on-device AI (via Samsung’s Gauss platform) and cloud-based AI (via Google’s Gemini). The combination of on-device and cloud-based AI means that employees can benefit from different but complementary AI functionality based on their specific needs and budgets (S25 devices will come with six months of Gemini Advanced and 2TB of cloud storage at no extra cost). Features include document and call summarization, call recording and transcription, smart call routing, real-time messaging translation, smart replies, and voice-to-action commands. The advanced capabilities offered by Google Gemini, notably in being able to analyze and work with large datasets, will make it appealing across frontline worker use cases, especially in industries such as logistics, manufacturing, and healthcare.
Mobile AI features are continuing to diversify and extend across devices, apps, and even cellular connectivity layers. This presents some exciting end-user benefits, but also challenges and questions for mobile device administrators within organizations, especially those that embrace corporate-owned and personally owned (BYOD) device management approaches. Samsung Knox will be one solution that administrators can use in these scenarios, but Omdia also anticipates that these will be features and use cases that UEM vendors will also look to support.
What opportunities will mobile AI present tech vendors offering business mobile solutions?
As AI becomes more infused into mobile devices and experiences, new opportunities will emerge for vendors offering enterprise mobile solutions. For vendors such as Microsoft, Omnissa, and Ivanti that deliver mobile device management (MDM) solutions, there is potential to enhance the administrative and policy management capabilities delivered by these tools. By introducing new device-agnostic mobile AI management features, these solutions will support businesses in optimizing productivity workflows, enforcing security policies, and ensuring compliance.
Advancements in on-device features also encourage vendors to embed this functionality into the business applications they develop. For example, on-device AI features such as translations, transcriptions, and document analysis can be integrated into the applications that employees use when collaborating and working productively. These features have applicability across a diverse range of industries. In healthcare, for example, AI-powered devices can be used to support diagnostics, record creation, inventory management, and provide real-time data and insights, and in offline mode, which is an important requirement across industries such as utilities and logistics. The fact that these features are available at device level, and to anyone with a compliant device, helps democratize AI.
Could we see telcos begin to offer AI services via business mobile contracts?
Telcos are uniquely positioned to support business mobile initiatives due to the range of connectivity, device, application, and professional services they provide. Omdia data shows that 37% of businesses view telcos as the partner of choice to support their mobile collaboration goals – that’s more than any other type of supplier. The end-to-end propositions they offer allow businesses to work with one provider for all their mobile needs – an aspect that has become increasingly important in recent years as businesses look to rationalize tech stacks and investments. The role telcos have in the enterprise mobile ecosystem also means that they are uniquely positioned to capitalize on mobile AI advancements. One way they could potentially achieve this is by bundling these subscription services, such as Google Gemini, into their enterprise mobile contracts. Due to the scale telcos would be working at, there should be potential for them to offer business mobile bundles that incorporate AI services by partnering with the likes of Google. These plans could be positioned as premium offerings, but could also be offered at a discounted rate thanks to economies of scale, making them more affordable than sourcing them separately. Organizations would benefit by being able to access AI solutions as part of their business mobile contracts, reducing provisioning complexities and cost.
Appendix
Further reading
2025 Trends to Watch: AI-Augmented Workplace Transformation (December 2024)
Author
Adam Holtby, Principal Analyst, Workplace Transformation
