At the big Galaxy S24 launch event on Tuesday centered around “Galaxy AI”, Samsung hinted it may begin charging users for some AI-powered software capabilities after 2025 – despite its flagships costing as high as $1,300.
The fine print on Galaxy S24 promo page warns that “Galaxy AI features will be provided for free until end of 2025 on supported Samsung devices.” This indicates the tech giant wants to eventually monetize elements like voice assistants, summarization tools and conversation translators.
With AI offerings requiring continual server expenditures, Google and Amazon already have subscription models for their digital assistants and ChatGPT plans paid tiers too. Samsung now eyes joining the bandwagon.
Usefulness of Features in Question
But it remains doubtful whether Samsung’s self-developed AI features can compete with advanced alternatives from Big Tech, or even warrant any charges.
Most seem half-baked copies of existing Google tools like Translate, Lens and Recorder – lacking the sophistication or breadth of platform offerings users already get for free on Android.
Rather than killer apps taking on Google head-on, the package feels more like a mishmash of software gimmicks trying to cash in on the AI hype.
Testing Waters for Eventual Monetization
As a foremost hardware company, Samsung may utilize on-device processing to enable new AI capabilities without substantial server overheads for now.
Still, putting the 2025 timeline out there suggests the company is likely testing waters to gradually introduce paid add-ons for future Galaxy devices if public acceptance grows.
For Samsung, making its own AI value-adds felt more meaningfully versus the Google ecosystem could be the bigger challenge today, before contemplating how to charge for it.
The coming years will reveal if Galaxy AI features evolve into must-haves that customers deem worthy of paying extra on top of premium device sticker prices.
