This Chinese brand just lapped Samsung in adding AI to its phones

Honor, the former Huawei subsidiary, has announced its latest Android skin, MagicOS 8.0, featuring an on-board AI and an intent-based interface. Honor may fly under the radar as a smartphone brand in the US, but the former Huawei subsidiary managed to grab the biggest smartphone market share in China by a small margin at the end of last year. Exactly one week before Samsung's big and likely AI-focused Galaxy launch event, Honor announced MagicOS 8.0, the latest version of its Android skin, featuring an on-board AI and a rethought "Intent-based" interface. MagicLM is supposed to power a range of new features, first and foremost an interface based on user intent that Honor calls IUI. Honor is vague about what exactly this means, but it describes it as follows: "Based on the platform-level AI in MagicLive, the IUI on MagicOS 8.0 can interpret language, images, gestures and eye movements to understand a user's intent and offer services proactively." This is achieved by a new "Magic Portal," which is a "Shortcut recommendation feature that lets users seamlessly switch and access services between apps and devices with a simple swipe." A video Honor shared with us below shows what this will look like in action. Some AI features mentioned here were already announced or teased by Honor during the Snapdragon Summit in October when it shared that the Honor Magic 6, its upcoming flagship phone, would support AI features powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. If the rumors are right, Samsung is planning to launch a similar avalanche of AI features with the Galaxy S24 next week on January 17. The company is expected to launch Samsung Gauss, its own generative AI model, locally powering features like live translation in calls, generative photo editing, AI wallpaper creation, and better zoom in night photography.