Samsung's Galaxy S25 Series Showcases Advanced AI-Powered Audio and Object Eraser Features

Samsung's Audio Eraser on the Galaxy S25 could quietly be one of its best new features

A Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra sitting on a desk showing the description for its Audio Eraser feature. (Image credit: Laptop Mag/Sean Riley) Samsung unveiled a bounty of new AI-powered software this week, including one intriguing addition for anyone who captures video on their phone: Audio Eraser. Revealed at January's Galaxy Unpacked 2025 event on Wednesday at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, Audio Eraser does exactly what it says on the tin -- with brilliant execution. Using AI to identify different sound elements in your videos -- voices, music, wind, nature, crowd, and noise -- Audio Eraser enables you to turn each one up or down. Suppose you are recording yourself or someone else speaking to you in a noisy environment. Audio Eraser can reduce or eliminate distracting background sound, whether it's music, vehicle noise, or even a crowded subway station. This isn't one of those features that immediately jumps out at you in a press release or even during Samsung's presentation, but it might be the most useful. As the audience at Samsung's event included many individuals who produce videos professionally, Audio Eraser generated some of the most applause at Unpacked. However, even if your videos never go beyond your friends and family, this feature could save videos that would otherwise end up in your digital trash bin. It's a post-production feature, so you don't need to worry about doing anything while recording. The other plus is that it will also work on any video you bring into the Gallery app on your Galaxy S25, regardless of what it was captured on. In Samsung's example, a group of street musicians are playing with a loud engine noise in the background. There is an auto mode that will attempt to adjust as needed, but you can dial each element in yourself, and in my testing, that delivers far superior results. The auto mode rarely turns any sound down to -100, which is what I wanted in every simulation I tried. There are limits to what the feature can do. I tried playing music loudly on the Sonos speaker next to me in my office while recording myself talking to the camera, and while it dramatically improved the results by making me clearly audible above the music, it wasn't able to remove the music entirely. However, in a separate test, I played back audio captured at a busy train station on the same speaker while speaking to the camera, and Audio Eraser was able to remove that background noise completely. I suspect it's better at identifying and eliminating more steady droning background sounds, similar to the engine noise in Samsung's sample. Even in those cases where it can't remove the background noise entirely, this is an incredibly powerful tool for personal and professional use. It's salvaging otherwise potentially unusable audio with a free app that is built into your phone. This feature faces the same challenges as many other compelling new AI features: Awareness and discoverability. It's not difficult to find Audio Eraser; you tap the Galaxy AI button on any video in your gallery, but almost the same could be said for Audio Magic Eraser on Google Pixel phones. This is where the awareness part comes in. Google's Audio Magic Eraser is essentially the same feature. It was announced at the Made by Google event on October 4, 2023, and is available on Pixel 8 and Pixel 9 phones. I need to run some tests comparing the two, but the overall look is identical. Google's implementation relies on cloud processing rather than on-device processing for Samsung, so there's at least one difference in Samsung's favor. Samsung also ships far more phones than Google, with the former sitting atop the global smartphone market at 19% as of Q3 2024 per Counterpoint, while Google still falls outside of the top 5 in the "Others" category, so even if they are identical, this puts the feature in far more users' hands. Finally, returning briefly to discoverability, Samsung removed a couple of steps, which could make all the difference. On a Pixel, you need to tap Edit and Audio before seeing the Magic Audio Eraser interface. It is just a tap of the Galaxy AI button away for Samsung. Following the Unpacked event, I wrote that "Samsung might have cracked the code to be your 'true AI companion," and this is yet another example. Samsung is removing barriers to its AI features and putting them front and center in many apps. AI can become an indispensable tool for mobile phones, but the learning curve needs to be flattened so that people can use and enjoy these great new features.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 series comes good on an AI promise eight years in the making

Object Eraser on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (Image credit: Samsung) I've tried and tested many AI eraser tools on smartphones over the years, but the one on the new Samsung Galaxy S25 series might just be the best I've ever used. Having debuted way back in 2021 on the Galaxy S21 Ultra, Object Eraser isn't one of the most exciting 'new' features of Samsung's AI-packed smartphone lineup, but it's one that's been so well refined in the years since its launch - and quietly so - that it genuinely had me returning to the Galaxy S25 demo area at Samsung's UK HQ to try it again, as I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. On a more personal note, this improved version of Object Eraser means Samsung has finally fulfilled a technological promise made to me* by Google eight years ago. Allow me to explain. The year is 2017. I'm sitting in one of Google's London campus offices, watching the I/O developer conference keynote. Nestled among the announcements of Android O, Android Automotive, and Daydream VR was a quick, three-second video that gave me - and many of those watching in the same room - a jaw-dropping moment. Google shows us the future of image editing. There's a photograph of a young kid standing on the plate, baseball bat in hand ready to swing for the fences. Trouble is, the parent taking the photo is standing behind said chain link fence, which is ruining the shot. But then, with a PowerPoint-esque screenwipe, the chain link fence is removed from the image, leaving us with a perfectly uninterrupted shot of Lil' Slugger. Check it out below: It was one of those moments that seemed too good to be true, and for years after it absolutely was. It haunted me. I was given a tantalizing glimpse of the future, yet year after year went by with no obvious signs of progress. I was left waiting, yearning for more until 2021 when Google announced Magic Eraser. At last, light at the end of the tunnel. While impressive, this first iteration wasn't capable of generating the fence-free image we had been shown years before. In the years since, we've seen phone manufacturers tout various AI tools, with eraser functions always front and center. But the post-removal results still left me a little disappointed. That is until I picked up the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. Samsung focused heavily on Galaxy AI during the Galaxy S25 launch event, and while Object Eraser - Samsung's version of Google's Magic Eraser - may have taken more of a back seat during the presentation compared to Now Brief, Audio Eraser, and Sketch to Image, Samsung definitely hasn't ignored it - unlike the poor S Pen. Object Eraser has been further improved for the S25 series, and the results are remarkable. You'll need to access this generative AI feature through Samsung's Gallery app, rather than Google Photos, and a quick tap of the Galaxy AI icon under the image you're viewing takes you to the editor. From there, you can select the people, objects, and obstructions you wish to have removed from your snap. Once you're happy with the selections, tapping the large Generate button starts the magic. And magic it is. Even in the crowded post-launch demo area, thronging with people, uneven lighting, and lots of furniture and textures, the Galaxy S25 Ultra was still able to impress. Take a look at these examples: It does a brilliant job at not only removing people and objects, which most eraser tools have mastered by now, but also filling in the unknown backgrounds behind these objects; it's truly on another level. I tried Object Eraser on the S25 Ultra side by side with Magic Eraser on the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and the generated fill on Samsung's phone came out on top every time. I first tried the S25's improved Object Eraser tool a week before Galaxy Unpacked at a separate Samsung pre-brief event. I was so impressed by its performance that I held off pitching this article as I wanted to return to the phone at launch to make sure I hadn't experienced a one-off fluke. And thankfully, I hadn't, as the S25 Ultra continued to deliver fantastic images with people erased and backgrounds smartly filled in. Once the phone has generated the new image, a button appears in the corner allowing you to view the original photo when held down. I found myself flicking between the original and AI-generated versions a lot, looking at all the clever ways blank spaces had been neatly stitched with the original. I wasn't able to get in front of a chain link fence, but the Galaxy S25 series has me believing, for the first time since that day in 2017, that Google's vision is now possible. For me, this is the realization of the promise made eight years ago. *okay, so Google didn't make the promise directly to me - but it's felt personal over the last eight years