Samsung has been working for the past two to three years to perfect its ambitious One UI 7 update. After delaying it numerous times, Samsung finally launched the stable version of One UI 7 with the Galaxy S25 series last month. It brings several upgrades including the Galaxy AI features. Samsung will roll it out for other Galaxy devices in the coming weeks. Ahead of the rollout, a Samsung executive has indicated that One UI 7 might not offer all the best Galaxy AI features to older devices.
Some One UI 7 AI features require powerful NPUs, so they might not be available on less powerful Galaxy devices
In an interview, Sally Jeong, EVP and Head of Framework R&D at Samsung MX, talked about One UI 7’s development and security concerns with artificial intelligence. The interviewer also asked the Samsung executive about the role of NPUs (Neural Processing Units) and GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) in powering the Galaxy S25’s advanced Galaxy AI features.
Sally said that advanced Galaxy AI features in the One UI 7 version need powerful hardware to compute. Samsung has devices these AI features into two categories: those that depend on on-device hardware and those powered by cloud servers. This is why some of the best Galaxy AI features like Now Brief, which requires advanced chips and robust on-device processing, might not be available on older Galaxy smartphones and tablets.
Cloud-based AI features are easier to roll out across a wider range of Galaxy products
Sally also mentioned that cloud-based Galaxy AI features like Circle to Search are much easier to roll out across a wider range of Galaxy devices. So, it is quite clear that Samsung plans to offer all the One UI 7 AI features it can to all older products if they can be provided on a software level. However, functionalities that need powerful hardware will not be available on phones that don’t have qualifying hardware.
Unfortunately, the Samsung executive didn’t specify which AI features the One UI 7 update would leave behind for the older Galaxy phones/tablets. It’s worth mentioning that Samsung’s intuitive Now Brief feature might not be available even on the earlier Galaxy flagships phones like the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S23, and Galaxy S22.
The Samsung executive revealed the information soon after the Galaxy S25 series received its first software update, which focuses on security improvements.