How to find the best AI phone for you

Cellphones have changed a lot over the years. From the Gordon Gekko brick-sized versions in the 80s to the flip phones of the 2000s, there have been a lot of changes to their size, slimness and features throughout their history. Nowadays, the latest innovation is AI technology. If you’re interested in exploring some of the latest phones with AI capabilities, read on to learn more and find the best AI phone for you. 

What defines an AI phone?

But first… what is an AI phone? While a lot of smartphones may have an AI feature or two, AI phones have dedicated AI capabilities, such as…

• Enhanced photography and videography: These phones use AI to do things like generate slow motion versions of videos, remove unwanted objects (or people—say goodbye to your ex) from photos or enhance low-light photography. 
  
• Advanced smart assistants and productivity tools: AI can be used to make smart searches (searches that go beyond just matching the keywords you plug in), generate personalized recommendations and schedule your calendar.
  
• Real-time communication and translation: Are you traveling somewhere and don’t know the language? AI can do real-time translations, so you can figure out what those menus say, or how to use that damn hotel shower. 

• Performance and privacy optimization: AI makes using your phone much safer. AI can detect things like user anomalies—e.g., someone trying to log in to your accounts from a different location, or large data transfers. AI is also good at scanning for malware and analyzing potential phishing attacks by scanning the email or SMS content. Yep, they’ll handle all those messages about your car’s extended warranty.

What is the best AI phone?

The best AI phone depends on your lifestyle and what you typically use your phone for, but here are just a few of the contenders for the best AI phones on the market. Cue the walk-on songs. 

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra uses Galaxy AI, Samsung’s AI-enhanced software. Its features include Writing Assist, which can help you sound more professional when drafting emails, or help you do things like add hashtags to social media posts for max #engagement. The phone also has AI tools that let you generatively edit photos, receive real-time voice translations and transcribe recorded conversations. It also offers Circle to Search, which lets you draw a circle around anything on your web browser or other apps and search for it. Online window shopping will never be the same.

Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max

Apple Intelligence powers the latest iPhone, enabling plenty of new AI features. Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max offers Writing Tools, which can rewrite or proofread whole text documents, as well as summarize and reformat them. The Photos app has a Clean Up option that can edit photos and Image Playground, which lets you create images in different styles. The Notes app now transcribes recordings and the dialer app can transcribe phone calls (so now you can tune out when mom is on hour three of telling you all the latest family drama). Siri can phone a friend and connect to ChatGPT for more detailed answers to your questions and Visual Intelligence lets you identify objects and places and translate text.

Google Pixel 9 Pro XL

Gemini (Google’s AI assistant) powers Google Pixel 9 Pro XL’s AI offerings—and they’re certainly XL. Use the Summarize tool to transcribe, Smart reply to suggest responses to your text chats, Circle to search to look up anything on your web browser or other apps just by circling it, Magic Editor to move (or remove) objects from your photos and Best Take to merge a bunch of different photos together to get that one perfect shot for your Instagram feed. 

Are AI phones worth it?

Whether or not an AI phone is worth it is pretty subjective and depends on your lifestyle. If you’re a content creator or photographer, you may find tools like the Magic Eraser helpful, or the enhanced photography and videography features. If you’re a frequent traveler, you’ll probably love the real-time translation features. If you’re a journalist, you may love the transcription feature for interviews. AI can also help with accessibility for those with disabilities, by doing things like reading out text, recognizing faces and objects in photos and auto-generating captions and subtitling. It all depends on you and your lifestyle. 

Ready to put the “I” in “AI”?

Now you know everything there is to know about AI phones and their capabilities. You could learn about the best 5G phones, or tap the button below to explore our phone deals, including on some of the best AI phones on the market. And that’s coming from a human.