Pixel 8's Magic Editor allegedly 'inspiring' Galaxy S24 AI-editing capabilities

It seems that Samsung really wants to challenge Google in the segment of AI-powered features for smartphones, as the Galaxy S24 series could offer its own alternative to the Pixel 8’s Magic Editor and Live Translate.

The Google Pixel 8 series boasts powerful and useful AI-powered features, among which the ‘Magic Editor’ stands out. This one can easily transform any image, allowing you to remove elements, change the position and size of subjects or objects, and even ‘complete’ objects thanks to the power of generative AI.

A report from late November 2023 claimed that Samsung was working on developing its own suite of AI-powered tools for phones. The goal would be to make the Galaxy flagship smartphones at least on par with the Pixel 8 series in that segment. Now, a new leak (by MysteryLupin on X/Twitter) indicates that the Pixel 8’s Magic Editor could be one of the functions ‘adapted’ by Samsung.

According to the leak, the Galaxy S24 series will include a ‘clone’ of the Pixel 8’s Magic Editor that should offer similar capabilities. Even Samsung describes its alternative as follows:

Move or remove objects. Fill in empty space with Generative Edit. Requires Samsung account log in and internet connection.

It should be noted that Samsung makes it clear from the beginning that the feature will require an active internet connection to function correctly, avoiding the small controversy in which the Pixel 8 series was involved after it was discovered that the Magic Editor processing was carried out in the cloud after Google heavily promoted ‘on-device’ AI processing.

Perhaps it is still too early to see fully on-device image processing through generative AI on phones, either due to lack of power or because it consumes a lot of energy. Whatever the reason, Samsung will choose the same path as Google, relying in the cloud for this.

Also, the Galaxy S24 series would offer an equivalent to the ‘Live Translate’ feature seen on Google Pixel devices, allowing you to communicate in real time with other people who speak different languages.

It was a matter of time before other OEMs began to take inspiration from what Google had done in the AI segment to develop features for their own mobile devices. We’ll probably start to see similar features in even more brands in the future, but will they work just as well? Only time will tell.