At Samsung’s launch event today, where the company unveiled its Galaxy S24 series of AI-powered smartphones, the company showcased how AI could improve the call experience with a new Live Translation feature. The feature, one of several translation features coming to the new smartphones, allows customers to make or receive a call in a language they don’t speak and then get a live translation of the call both audio and on screen.
The company showcased the AI technology on stage at today’s Unpacked event, showing how someone could use the new feature to make a restaurant reservation even though they didn’t speak Spanish. Within the native Call app, the conversation was translated immediately after they spoke to the other person on the phone. That person could then respond in their own language — in this case, Spanish, which was then translated back into the caller’s language, English.
“It’s like having your own personal interpreter on your calls,” noted Samsung’s vice president of product management, Drew Blackard.
The live translation feature will launch with support for audio and text translations for up to 13 languages, Samsung said. In addition, all translation is done on the device, so Samsung owners’ phone calls remain private.
The feature will also remember your language settings and the language that each of your contacts speak, so you don’t have to make updates before your conversation. This could be useful for people who make a lot of international calls, as well as frequent travelers, the company suggested.
Image Credits: Samsung
The translation features also work outside of calls, translating what you say both verbally and through text for the other person — and vice versa.
Image Credits: Samsung
In addition, translation is added to the Samsung keyboard, so you can directly translate words and phrases as you type. Here, as you chat, the keyboard will detect the language being used and translate the message into the recipient’s language. This feature could be useful even when both people speak the same language but are more comfortable communicating in their native language.
Samsung notes that users can even choose different communication styles, such as “casual” when texting with a friend or a more formal language for work contacts. There’s also an enthusiastic tone, a social tone (for social media posts, for example) and a Shakespearean tone — the latter if you’re feeling “a bit whimsical,” the company added.
Similar to live translation while speaking, these translations are also done on the device thanks to Google’s most efficient AI model, Gemini Nano.
