Samsung responds to the new iPhone threat
Updated November 9 with leaks about the timing of Google’s new AI model.
Samsung has just unveiled a major Galaxy update as it battles the new threat from Apple Intelligence on the latest iPhones. This is about AI, and Samsung’s promise to “lead the new era by developing AI that anyone can easily access and use in everyday life.” But the company has also confirmed a widening security and privacy gap between the Galaxy and the iPhone, which will help determine what happens next. Now it will be up to the millions of Galaxy owners to decide what they want to do next.
In a post released by the company’s Korea newsroom, Samsung’s Kim Dae-hyun promises “Generated artificial intelligence that meets the level of user needs, operational technology that enhances personalized experience and usability, and security technology that protects personal information in safe way”. The new news is the planned introduction of knowledge graph technology, to better personalize the AI experience.
Knowledge graphs are not new—the term dates back more than a decade and was first applied by Google to its knowledge base. But generative AI has given the term new meaning, although the function is broadly the same—to help “organize data from multiple sources, capture information about entities of interest in a particular domain or task (such as people, places or events) and forging connections between them.” This enables Knowledge Graphs to “add context and depth to other, more data-driven AI techniques; and serve as a bridge between people and systems, such as generating human-readable explanations.”
“When I wake up in the morning,” Kim suggests, I’ll be greeted by “an AI secretary who summarizes today’s schedule and addresses what I want with a natural conversation like talking to a person is typical. The era of using AI as this will become our everyday, not our future.” This means enhanced originality based on the specific needs and characteristics of a specific user. “We plan to develop knowledge graph technology, one of the core technologies of personalized AI, and organically connect with AI designed to support services user specific.”
But while this is new, what is not new is the company’s continued focus on hybrid AI, “a technology that uses on-device AI and cloud AI together to provide a balance of speed and security. If you use on-device AI, which has its advantages of fast response speed and strong on-device privacy protection, and cloud AI, which provides various functions based on massive data and high-performance computing high, you can deliver the optimal AI experience in different environments and conditions.”
This combination of on-device and cloud AI can be deployed “separately or both at the same time, according to the technical requirements of each function.” It has been the supposed dividing line when it comes to security and privacy. “All AI services, including personalized services, must be able to provide secure AI. We provide personalized AI based on individual data to increase user convenience, but there should be no risk of personal information leaking.”
Simply put, the more personal and private the process, the more sensitive data it may require, the more likely it is to be processed on devices with the lowest level of processing balanced with the highest level of security. .
We had thought that Apple would take the same approach, or be even more restrictive to AI only on devices. But instead she has chosen a completely different direction. Private Cloud Compute, he says, offers “innovative privacy and security protections.” Again, simply put, this is Apple’s end-to-end device-to-cloud silicon, ensuring that “the user’s personal data sent to the PCC is not accessible by anyone other than the user — not even Apple.” iMaker describes PCC as “the most advanced security architecture ever deployed for cloud AI computing at scale.”
Now there is a clear choice. Moving AI faster through a fluid, hybrid architecture, or a more private and secure extension of a person’s phone cloud enclave, prioritizing data security and privacy while having is likely to slow progress given its complexity, especially when it comes to deploying third-party processing AI at scale.
Apple has offered hackers up to $1 million to crack this new architecture, which while a drop in the ocean financially, made headlines as intended. We have yet to see serious attacks on device- or cloud-based AI offerings from Google, Samsung or Apple. But they will come. What remains unclear is how this might highlight the difference between Samsung and Apple—plus a third, even more cloud-focused offering, the Pixel. Let’s not forget, we still see the Android vs. iPhone security angle feature when it comes to other aspects of locking the respective devices.
One thing that could change this equation is the background battle between OpenAI and Google for supremacy in high-scale AI models running on the cloud side. Apple is getting closer to launching its ChatGPT Siri integration with iOS 18.2, while news has just emerged that “Google [is] preparing to launch Gemini 2.0 with new AI model in testing” earlier than expected.
Clearly, this matters because while Samsung’s Android operating system is intrinsically linked to Google and Gemini, Apple has – at least for now – linked its AI assets to OpenAI; It now appears literally, with iPhone users likely to be offered paid subscription upgrades to premium ChatGPT access from directly within their iPhone’s OS.
As reported by Testing Catalog“While the appearance of the Gemini 2.0 in the model selector is exciting, it is crucial to temper expectations. It is possible that the responses currently attributed to 2.0 are being generated from an existing template. Until Google officially confirms and releases Gemini 2.0, we can’t definitively say what we’re seeing.” But what it also says is that “regardless of the uncertainty, this leak offers a tantalizing glimpse into the future of Google’s AI ambitions. If Gemini 2.0’s speed and accessibility prove true, it could be a game changer.”
With iOS 18.2 next month, we’ll have our first realistic head-to-head between iPhone and Android, Apple and Samsung/Google, in terms of putting advanced AI into phones. With Samsung continuing to run its Galaxy AI umbrella, Google turning its Pixels into AI front-ends, and Apple taking its first mainstream isn’t necessarily the best approach, the choice for users will be truly “trantalizing” life.
This spills over into privacy and security concerns, as well Forbes contributor Kate O’Flaherty points out, “using ChatGPT requires sending some data to OpenAI, so if you’re using it on iOS 18.2, be aware of what you’re sharing.”
The expectation is that Apple will make a virtue of this level of transparency – what resides on the device or within the PCC enclave and what is happening elsewhere. The same is not yet the case with Samsung and especially with Google. AI’s current privacy policies are fragmented and confusing, and it doesn’t clearly state when data is transmitted elsewhere and what happens to that data afterwards.
In this regard, Apple assures that “for users who choose to access ChatGPT through Siri or Writing Tools, privacy protections are built in – their IP addresses are obscured and OpenAI will not store requests”, although “users can to access ChatGPT for free without creating an account, and ChatGPT’s data usage policies apply to those who choose to link their account.”
You can see how this new privacy battle will play out. I have previously suggested that Samsung seek a response to Apple’s PCC to provide a closer match. What we’ve seen now, however, seems more of a renewed commitment to the hybrid AI alternative. Meanwhile, Samsung seems to recognize the dual challenges from Google and Apple when it comes to the next generation of AI-focused devices, and its Android 15 delays aren’t helping either. Now it’s up to the respective user bases to decide. For today’s Galaxy owners, the choices coming in 2025 are getting more interesting. It’s decision time.