Samsung suggests it will start charging for AI from 2025

Samsung has seemingly confirmed that it will start charging for its AI features from the end of 2025.

The South Korean tech giant has just announced its new Galaxy S24 range, and by far the most interesting thing about them is the suite of powerful AI tools that will be available through each handset.

While Samsung didn’t specifically address previous rumours that it would eventually lock such AI features behind a paywall, it appears to have let slip confirmation through some small print.

Head over to the Galaxy S24 news post on the Samsung Australia Newsroom, and scan down to the footnotes. There you’ll see the company confirming that “Galaxy AI features will be provided free of charge until the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices”.

So, according to Samsung itself, these new Galaxy AI features are only guaranteed to remain free for around two years. It’s worth noting that this doesn’t mean that Samsung will definitely start charging for AI after this point. It just means that Samsung is only promising to supply a free service up to then.

In case you think this is legalese aimed at a specific region, there’s similar wording over on the Galaxy S24 handset listing for Samsung US. “Galaxy AI features will be provided for free until the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices,” the smallprint reads, before adding that “Different terms may apply for AI features provided by third parties.”

Could that last part be a reference to Samsung’s partial AI partnership with Google? Might it be the case that Samsung’s on-device AI features will remain free while its cloud-based services require a subscription fee?

With the tech industry and indeed the wider public still very much finding their feet with the whole AI thing, it’s perhaps a smart move not to commit to anything long term. But the future of AI assistants might not be free.