Motorola Unveils New Razr Lineup with Integrated Multi-AI Approach

Motorola's 'Swiss Army Knife' Take on AI Makes My Head Spin

Moto AI's presence on the new 2025 Motorola Razr lineup isn't a surprise, but the company's Swiss Army knife approach might stand out even more than the Alcantara fabric seen on the $1,300 Razr Ultra. Instead of going it alone and mimicking the AI efforts we're seeing from Samsung, Google and Apple, Moto AI appears to be building a coalition of AI partners. Perplexity, Meta's Llama AI, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini all are meant to peacefully coexist alongside Motorola's own AI features on the Razr. Instead of acting like five different AI apps, many features either run when they're directly summoned or they're more passive. While Apple has integrations for ChatGPT in Siri and Visual Intelligence, no other phone-maker has taken this integrated AI approach. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) Partnering with so many different AI companies takes the pressure off Motorola to do all the work and could instantly benefit Razr owners. And all that might quickly elevate the Razr phones to some of the most flexible AI phones sold today, by virtue of having so many built-in options. When Motorola began presenting each of these AI partnerships, the options made my head spin. Some people are still figuring out what they want to use AI for, and expecting them to understand four different services seems like a high bar to entry. But Motorola's approach is to embed these services into specific functions, which might help spell out more efficient ways for people to make the most of them. Allison Yi, Motorola's North American Product Portfolio lead, said that the approach is intentional, so Motorola's AI efforts avoid duplicating what's already available in Android while giving customers fast access to whichever AI engine they prefer. "We are partners with Google, we believe that they do have a very capable, powerful camera experience like Magic Eraser... but if you look at our Moto AI experiences, it's in addition to what Google made Android able to provide," Yi told CNET. Yes, you can say "Ask Perplexity" or "Ask Copilot," but Motorola's approach appears to let you begin with a more natural request. I should be able to say, "What movies are playing tonight at the movie theater around 7 p.m.?" and while Moto AI is fetching that answer, its Next Move feature might suggest ways I can take public transit or an Uber to the movie theater. We'll have to test it out to see if that's truly the case, but that would be a more proactive way of stringing together what I want to do in less time. This would also line up with an AI concept Motorola demonstrated last year at Lenovo Tech World, in which an AI assistant handled actions based on a user's request without switching between multiple services. The example was based on asking an assistant to order a cup of coffee: The AI assistant sent the order directly to a coffee shop without needing to use another app. Moto AI hasn't partnered with any coffee shops, although voice assistants such as Apple's Siri and Google Assistant have shortcut-style app integrations to apps from Starbucks, Dunkin' and other services. If the approach pays off, Perplexity stands to benefit the most from being integrated on the Razr. Perplexity AI is triggered when you open the Perplexity app, ask for Perplexity via the Moto AI assistant or if you make a request -- such as asking for ideas on how to plan a vacation -- it activates itself. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said that his company's services will run even when the Razr is shut. Perplexity is also part of Moto AI's Next Move feature, which scans what's onscreen and will offer suggestions based on what it sees, similar to Gemini Live. This could include saving a recipe that you're looking at, streaming a video based on the recipe or generating a cooking music playlist. Perplexity has a similar spotlight in the upcoming AI Phone, which is being developed in its partnership with Deutsche Telekom for release later this year. Meta's Llama AI takes lead on Motorola's Catch Me Up feature, which will summarize notifications down to essential information like grouping the major points of a recent group chat. Llama will also let you provide a prompt to reply in-line to a message notification summary. While I would prefer to doublecheck what the AI is summarizing before replying, even getting the gist of all the pings my phone received could help cut down on time. For more general queries, the Razr line gets two options that you can access across two different buttons. If you press the Moto AI button, you can say "Ask Copilot" and then your request for information will run through Microsoft's AI assistant. Motorola also teased a deeper Copilot experience, but for now the feature acts more like an advanced search engine. And if you would prefer to use Google's Gemini, you can press and hold the power button to launch that AI assistant in the same method that it's accessible on most other Android phones. As Gemini begins to supplant the Google Assistant, it will likely be the default service for accessing smart home controls and similar applications currently handled by Google Assistant. All this sits alongside Motorola's own AI efforts, which also include a variety of active and passive photography enhancements. These start with AI assisting with low-light photography. The effect is achieved with a combination of AI and hardware, according to Mauricio Moises, Motorola's senior product manager of camera. "[The Razr phones] feature a special functionality we call the Photo Enhancement Engine. The Photo Enhancement Engine is totally raw [file] based, and it helps you not just for the day by day lighting conditions but it's also especially good on noise suppression," Moises said. Motorola also offers a Signature Style option for customizing the look and feel of photos. AI scans what's happening within the photo to make additional color and contrast tweaks, including optional tweaks you can manually add. "The Signature Style which has this whole AI methodology behind that understands the context of the scene, and more importantly, the processing time for that is super, super fast," Moises said. "But if you're still not satisfied with the preset, nor the natural tone, you can still customize your own version." Motorola is unique in relying on multiple partners to develop the Razr's AI efforts. But to a lesser degree, Apple's partnership with ChatGPT has a similar flexibility. When first introducing its AI efforts at WWDC 2024, Apple said it plans to make future integrations with other AI technologies similar to the ChatGPT integration. While Apple hasn't yet done that, it's easy to imagine the company supplementing its "ask ChatGPT" prompt with any number of other sources. There's also the matter of phone buyers already being exhausted by AI. My CNET colleague Abrar Al-Heeti, who recently visited Mobile World Congress where numerous AI phone concepts were being demonstrated, says that the features will have a better chance of being accepted when people can feel their efficiency. "Once AI can seamlessly work in the background to carry out tasks across apps, and do so fairly inconspicuously, it'll be embraced by more people. There's a real sense of AI fatigue among many consumers who see it as a buzzword, but once it gets baked further into their devices and services without constantly reminding them that this is AI-powered, they'll be less resistant to the idea," Al-Heeti said. And with AI's role on mobile phones still being defined, perhaps having multiple partners for Razr buyers to choose from will help these customers figure out exactly what they want Moto AI to do most. And as that purpose is further refined, Motorola might be able to tweak its future AI plans accordingly, whether it's with its partnerships or its own AI development.

Moto AI and Perplexity Are Ready for Primetime on Motorola's New Razr Phones

Moto AI is expanding further than ever before with the company's new Razr series of smartphones -- the Razr Ultra, Razr+, and Razr -- all packed with AI features. The Moto AI brand is exclusive to Motorola's products and it's the company's way to distinguish itself from the competition by offering unique AI integration. But Motorola is also teaming up with Perplexity to pre-install the AI company's app on all new Motorola devices. Everyone with new Motorola phones, including Razr and Edge 60 devices, will get three months of Perplexity Pro for free (it's usually $20 per month). This includes deep research; a choice of advanced AI models including Sonar, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and GPT-4o; Pro Shopping features; and unlimited file uploads and Pro/Reasoning searches. Motorola and Perplexity also created a few custom integrations, including direct access through Moto AI by typing "Ask Perplexity" and a Perplexity Assistant that can do things like send emails, set smart reminders, play media, request rides, and book restaurant reservations. Standout Moto AI features, meanwhile, include Catch Me Up, which is designed to give you an easy-to-read digest of recent notifications. It can summarize activity on your phone for when you're swamped with updates and you want a quick rundown of the most important parts. Apple Intelligence has a similar feature for iPhones called Summarize Notifications, but the feature has been hit or miss. Apple had to pause it for news-related items after it incorrectly pushed summaries with incorrect information. Another Moto AI feature is Remember This, where you can save key details on your phone and find them again within a virtual journal. If you want to remember an address or a key piece of information, ask Moto AI to save it and it'll put it into your journal for you to retrieve later. Motorola's Pay Attention is a recorder feature for meetings that uses AI to generate a transcript, similar to services like Google Recorder or Otter. Moto AI will give you key points from your meeting in an easy-to-read list. Next Move uses what is on your phone's screen to predict which app you're likely to switch to next, and give you suggestions on apps you may want to use. This works on the Razr's external display, too. It's not just software from Motorola, as there's a new Moto AI button on its flagship Ultra phone that will make it even easier to access AI features. Moto AI was first introduced at the end of 2024 where various features were brought to last year's Razr series and the Edge 50 Ultra for owners to trial in an open beta. Each phone will be available to preorder on May 7 and will go on sale from May 15. The Razr Ultra costs $1,299.99, the Razr+ is $999.99, while the standard Razr costs $699.99.

Motorola Debuts $1,300 AI-Infused Razr Phone, Swarovski Earbuds

Motorola launched a new Razr foldable phone lineup loaded with a suite of artificial intelligence assistants in a far-reaching overhaul of its portfolio that also includes new earbuds and a watch. The Lenovo Group Ltd. brand is positioning itself to offer consumers more choice of software and trendy accessories beyond market leaders Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. The new Razr Ultra, priced at $1,300, is the third phone in the series. They'll all be preloaded with Perplexity AI's app as well as AI models from Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google via the phones' Motorola AI assistant. That collection of third-party software helps power features like responding to user queries, identifying contextual information and summarizing notifications.

Motorola's Razr 2025 series is here, including the most expensive Razr yet

All three models have an expansive cover screen with a rear camera island, an IP48 rating, a redesigned hinge, and a less prominent crease. The company also revealed that all three phones will have a pre-installed Perplexity AI app optimized for the cover screen and three free months of Perplexity Pro. Motorola hopped on the AI bandwagon last year with its Moto AI features, and all three phones will offer this suite of capabilities. Some of the notable AI additions include image generation, Catch Me Up (an optional notification summary feature), Remember This, and Next Move. Remember This is similar to Nothing's Essential Space, although Motorola first announced this feature last year. Meanwhile, Next Move will effectively suggest when specific Moto AI features could come in handy. The manufacturer also offers a nifty Playlist Studio AI feature, which generates music playlists based on user descriptions.

The new Moto Razr will run Perplexity and CoPilot as part of Moto AI

Table of Contents Table of Contents A choice of AI platforms New Moto AI features When can you get these devices? Motorola has today unveiled three new smartphones -- the Razr 2025, Razr Plus 2025, and Razr Ultra 2025 -- alongside the new Moto Buds Loop earbuds, the Moto Watch Fit smartwatch, and more. The three new Razr phones are built with AI in mind, and as part of a preview yesterday, we learned that they also feature several firsts for AI in smartphones. A choice of AI platforms Out of the box, all three Razr devices will come preinstalled with Google Gemini as the default voice assistant. However, in addition to this, all three devices will also have access to rival AI platforms, including Perplexity and Microsoft CoPilot. If you buy one of the new Razr models, you'll also get access to three months of Perplexity Pro for free. Recommended Videos Each phone uses a different chipset and therefore has different capabilities when it comes to running complex LLM models on-device. The Razr Ultra 2025 is the only model to use the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which also gives it access to a neural processing unit with 80 TOPS of performance. This means that it's also the only phone capable of running Meta's Llama 3.2 model, which is powering Motorola's new Look and Talk feature. New Moto AI features The new feature enables you to interact with Moto AI without touching the screen or using voice commands when using the Razr Ultra 2025 in stand or tent mode. This means you can instantly access Moto AI features at a glance without needing to activate them. For those who prefer, you can also activate these features by pressing and holding the dedicated AI key. The new Razr 2025 series comes equipped with a range of new Moto AI features. The Look and Talk feature is exclusive to the Razr Ultra 2025, but all three devices also gain access to upgraded versions of the original Moto AI features. These include Catch Me Up to summarize notifications, Remember This to save and easily recall screenshots, and Pay Attention to start a voice recording complete with instant transcription. When can you get these devices? All three devices are also the first to debut new Moto AI 2.0 features, including Next Move, which reads what's on your screen and recommends next steps, such as creating a music playlist, generating images with Image Studio, or saving important details to recall them later easily. Pre-orders for the new Razr 2025 will launch May 7, starting at $699.99, with all three devices on sale on May 15.