Now, the Galaxy S25 brief is like the Google Now of the AI ​​era

Samsung launched its own Galaxy S25 seriesand as expected, the phones AI features took center stage in the event. While many expected Samsung to power its Bixby assistant with artificial intelligence, the company surprised everyone by relying heavily on Google. Gemini AI.

This partnership introduced new features designed to make Samsung’s flagship phones more active and intelligent companions. One such feature is Now in Brief, which gives users a personalized summary of their day and is reminiscent of the Google Now feature from the Android KitKat era.

Brief now acts as a contextual hub, delivering tailored updates based on the time of day. For example, in the morning, it can show weather forecasts, health metrics like sleep metrics from the Galaxy Watch, and a summary of the day’s scheduled events.

Then, during your commute, the feature can suggest navigation routes, start playing music, and even recommend a coffee stop based on nearby promotions. In the evening, it can highlight the day’s recap, photos taken, progress toward fitness goals, and other highlights.

This feature is designed to work seamlessly with the Samsung ecosystem, receiving data from Galaxy apps, connected devices, and even some third-party apps like Spotify and WhatsApp. Samsung highlighted how AI will play a key role in ensuring that updates feel personalized and timely rather than generic or repetitive.

Complementing Now Brief is Now Bar, a lock screen feature that combines similar functionality in a compact, viewable format. It’s very similar to Apple’s Speaker Island, offering quick updates like live sports scores, travel tickets and summaries without having to unlock the phone.

However, Samsung’s design choice of placing it near the bottom of the screen should make it more ergonomic and practical, especially for one-handed use.

Now Short and Now Bar features are part of Samsung One UI 7so these features should make their way to older Galaxy devices as well. One UI 7 also integrates Gemini more deeply into Galaxy devices. Gemini now provides advanced cross-app gestures on the Galaxy S25 series, allowing users to perform complex tasks. These features certainly sound promising and we can’t wait to test them out for ourselves to see how they work in real life.

For example, you can ask it to find a restaurant for an upcoming meeting, check its availability, and send the details to your contact — all at once. Another example involves extracting key data from a YouTube video and turning it into a recording with a single command.

While these AI-powered tools are exciting, they come with a trade-off of their own. For Now Brief, Now Bar, and Gemini to be as useful as promised, the system needs extensive access to user data across apps and devices. For those wary of privacy risks, the idea of ​​an AI assistant scanning through apps to find links or gather context can be intrusive, even if it’s meant to enhance the user experience.

Nevertheless, it’s clear that Samsung and all other phone makers are betting big on AI becoming a core part of the smartphone experience.