Samsung Hints It May Charge A Galaxy AI Fee Sometime After 2025, Would You Pony Up?

T.M. Roh, president of Samsung Electronics’ mobile business, hinted that Galaxy AI features might require customers to pay a fee of some kind in the future. Galaxy AI is one of the big, new additions the company is adding to its Galaxy S24 line of phones as it does battle with Apple for top spot in the mobile market. Access to Galaxy AI will be free for customers who buy into the Galaxy S24 ecosystem.

Samsung believes that it can serve differing needs of customers by breaking out certain AI features into a level that requires payment to use it, most likely a subscription. Roh says "according to our analysis, there are various needs for mobile AI. So, there will be consumers who will be satisfied with using the AI capabilities for free. Then there could also be customers who wish for even more powerful Al capabilities, and even pay for them."


Roh pointed out that Samsung is investing heavily to develop these AI features, so it was only a matter of time until the massive Korean conglomerate decided it needed to start monetizing them. The company hopes to have Galaxy AI running on 100 million devices across the globe, so it’s certainly a big opportunity to generate a new stream of revenue.

However, Samsung will need to tread carefully when rolling out these monetization plans. People in general are starting to show subscription fatigue as more and more services look to get customers into this type of payment plan. Not only that, but as smartphones have started to plateau in terms of design, Samsung is hoping to spur growth by touting AI as the next big thing for its mobile phones. Will this work if customers know they’ll have to pay to get the most interesting features? We’ll most likely find out the answer to this question starting in 2025.