During Galaxy Unpacked, Samsung made a big deal of the new and improved Galaxy AI and Google Gemini integration in its new flagship Galaxy S25 series.
With this in mind, I grabbed our Galaxy S25 to test out one of the best AI features that was released for Samsung, Circle to Search. If you've never used the program before, it allows you to quickly circle an item on the screen, which will then bring up a set amount of Google search results corresponding to what you searched.
It's a handy feature, but there are some limitations that Samsung has work to improve upon. These improvements take the form of new tools on the Galaxy S25 and improvements to how your phone recognizes what you've circled.
Without further ado, let's have a look at what is new with Circle to search, and how it improves the overall experience.
Circle to Search: Advanced AI Overviews
The first change isn’t the most flamboyant, but it makes Circle to Search just that bit more useful. In essence, The new version of Circle to Search offers the same AI summaries that you now see on many Google searches. The summaries in question are comprised of information taken from many different sources and offer a breakdown of necessary information. Also, before anyone says anything, they're no longer as off as they were before when they recommended some very strange things.
Part of what powers this improvement is the inclusion of Gemini 2.0, which has been classed by Google as bringing the “age of agents.” For reference, what sets Gemini 2.0 apart is its use of AI Agents to gather data from various sources. If you’ve never heard the term Agent in the context of AI, it is essentially software that allows Gemini to create copies of itself and send them out to perform different tasks, rather than having to focus on one single thing.
Finding the AI summaries is easy, as you just use Circle to Search as you usually would. However it should be noted that the summaries don't appear for everything, it really does depend on the subject matter. However, I love this addition, primarily because of what I use Circle to Search for.
When I use the feature it's usually to find information quickly (often to win a debate, it's cheating I know) and I want it in an easy-to-digest format. I don't want to use Circle to Search to then have to go into another website, and AI summaries can fix that.
Circle to Search: One Tap Actions
The other improvement that’s come to Circle to Search is the addition of one-tap actions, which makes searching for certain things much easier. One-Tap actions allow you to directly call a phone number, email an address, or visit a URL on your screen with a single tap. This, in theory, makes it easier than ever to navigate your phone's apps.
One thing to note is that one-tap actions only appeared for me when I didn't circle or tap the element I wanted an action for. If you look at the above images you'll notice that I didn't select anything; this is because the option disappears the moment that you do. It's a bit weird, but otherwise, it works as you would expect and did access both the web pages, phone and email apps.
When I tested it, I first wanted to see if it would work on something written down on a page, and it did for Samsung's phone number. however, when I tried writing down my email, Circle to Search struggled to pick it up. I eventually got the feature to work, but it missed the entire first word of my email. However, it worked fine on a webpage, so it could have been my handwriting.
Circle to Search: Is it better?
There are a lot of major improvements to Circle to Search, including one that works behind the scenes. While one-tap actions and summaries aim to improve the user experience, they wouldn't work without the improved recognition software that Samsung has implemented. In concept, this improves how good Circle to Search is at recognizing what you want it to look into.
With all that said and done, what do I think of the actual changes and are they beneficial? The answer is a yes, but it's not as enthusiastic as it could be. On one hand, I think AI summaries are a great addition, while one-tap actions are just a bit lacking at this point. The issue is that they're kind of hard to notice, and what they can do seems to just be a replacement for copy and paste in a lot of situations.
In the end, Circle to Search remains a great feature on the Galaxy S25, but the real question is when will it come to older devices? Currently, it's a bit in the air with Samsung telling our sister site TechRadar: “Nothing to share right now, but Samsung is committed to providing the best possible Galaxy experience to all our users, and we are assessing which features will be available on which devices.”
I don't doubt that we'll see the Circle to Search features on older phones within the next couple of months, but for now, we can only wait and see which of the best Android phones will have access.
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