Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2025 gave us a first look at the exciting new Galaxy S25 lineup of phones, but what if I said that was far from the best announcement to come out of the showcase?
While phones were the primary focus, Samsung highlighted its AI efforts throughout the presentation. Whether it was Galaxy AI or the many ways the company works with Google and Gemini to improve the Android experience, Samsung spent a significant chunk of the showcase delving into what to expect.
Plenty of exciting features were unveiled, like Gemini Live, which lets you speak with AI to brainstorm ideas or pose questions, or Extensions, which allows Gemini to complete actions across multiple apps with one command.
However, while AI is obsessed with creating new things to distract the user, what impressed me most was a Galaxy AI feature that focuses on the user's information and seems useful daily: Enter the Now Brief.
Now Brief is one of the few upcoming AI features I can see myself using.
Now Brief, an upcoming feature that will (unfortunately) be exclusive to Samsung Galaxy S25 phones, utilizes Galaxy AI to provide daily briefings on what the day ahead of you will look like through Morning, Midday, and Evening briefs.
By compiling your personal data from other Galaxy applications, you can press the Morning Brief button when you wake up to get a sense of the weather, how well you slept, any scheduled events, and more.
Now, Brief can be added to your home screen as an easily accessible widget, and it's also available on your lock screen, so it's accessible as soon as you wake up and open your phone.
It's no secret that most people check their phones first thing in the morning. I usually do the same, checking my messages or browsing social media, but I love the alternative Now Brief proposes. As someone who is rather forgetful, quickly being reminded of exactly what I'll be doing that day is awesome.
The number of times I've had an event or reminder in my Google Calendar that never notified me of its existence, only for it to pass as I remained in complete ignorance, is laughably high.
You might think, "Can't you just open your calendar every morning, and it'll offer a similar daily briefing?" It's not that simple. Not only is Now Brief visible when you open your phone through the new bottom widget, referred to as a Now Bar, but it doesn't exclusively source information from your calendar.
By entering the settings and selecting "content to include," Galaxy AI can compile information in categories such as Health and wellness, finance, travel, events and tasks, routine, digital well-being, communication, moments, gallery stories, traffic updates, and news to monitor your habits and predict when you'll need certain things throughout the day.
One example in Samsung's Now Brief video showcases how you can implement a driving routine if your Galaxy detects you use certain things on the road. When opening the Midday brief, a pop-up suggests setting up an automatic routine that will open maps and play music while driving.
Other examples include informing you when your coupons expire and information about flight tickets, trains, and events. At the end of the night, you can receive an Evening brief that reviews your health stats for the day.
Knowing that I will reliably be informed of my daily schedule through a briefing is enough incentive to constantly add events to my calendar. My phone will always keep me updated on the daily happenings, and anytime I add something to the Calendar app, Now Brief will offer that information when relevant.
We need AI features that are, first and foremost, focused on the user. So much AI nowadays is focused on the AI itself, revolving around how it can solve your problems, write for you, draw for you, and even critique your photography, as shown in the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2025.
That may sound pleasant to some, but in my life, these are just gimmicks I cannot see myself ever actually using. Instead of trying to create new things for me, having Galaxy AI work to compile all of my information into one place and analyze my habits is significantly more helpful.
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