Samsung announced a lot of things during its Galaxy Unpacked event, like the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Ultra. There was even a special teaser at the tail end that gave us our first peek at the Galaxy S25 Edge. They were all memorable in their own way, but there was one moment in particular that took me by surprise — a subtle nod to the now defunct phone maker, Palm.
During Drew Blackard’s overview about Galaxy AI, vice president of mobile product management at Samsung, he mentions a nugget of information that phone nerds like myself recognize. “With our decades-long heritage of innovation and synergy with our multi-device ecosystem, Samsung is uniquely positioned to redefine connected living putting your well being at the center,” explains Blackard about the relationship between Galaxy AI and SmartThings.
His statement there instantly brought me back to a concept that Palm first introduced with the release of the Palm Pre — Synergy — which aimed to remove the barriers between sources of personal data. Thinking back on it, Palm’s Synergy is a perfect early example of how phones were integrating AI in some capacity, but we didn’t know it back then.
The Galaxy S25’s Personal Data Engine has many parallels with Palm’s Synergy, so it’s kinda ironic that Samsung is unintentionally taking this genius idea and making it reality. I, for one, can’t be more excited about this AI revolution.
A phone that understands you
What I loved about Synergy on the Palm Pre was how it simplified all of my data and enhanced my productivity. It took all the data from my various accounts, like the contacts from my email, social media accounts, and the local phonebook and combined them into one. It knew that this person in my phonebook was one of my Facebook friends, which it then combined the contact into one. Synergy eliminated the need for me to manually go through all of that data.
Personal Data Engine takes it to the next level by leaning on AI to uncover routines and streamline tasks by suggesting automations. The Galaxy S25’s Now Brief is a perfect example of this as a contextual hub that provides meaningful suggestions based on your habits and phone usage. The example I love is it suggesting a routine to play music, all because the Personal Data Engine learns that you frequently play music while driving.
It’s one thing for AI to learn habits and suggest routines, but it’s a totally different thing trying to support different apps to work with these routines.
Cross App Actions is the holy grail of AI
Unfortunately for Palm, its ambitions for a smartphone that could learn and take proactive measures crashed and burned as its webOS phones failed to compete against the iPhone and horde of Android phones. But when I think back about Synergy and how it worked in tandem across several apps, it reminds me how much Samsung is tackling this concept with Cross App Actions.
This is without a doubt the most ambitious attempt at making a seamless, interconnected mobile experience — all with AI at the helm to understand your request and then make the appropriate actions. Samsung showed me a demo of this by asking the AI Agent, which consists of a combination of Google Gemini and Samsung’s Bixby, to find out the Kansas City Chief’s schedule for next season and add it to the calendar.
I fully understand how Cross App Actions will be seamless across the Galaxy S25’s native apps (including those from Google), but its true worth will only be seen by how it integrates with third-party apps. At launch, only WhatsApp and Spotify are supported by Cross App Actions. That’s not enough to convince me just yet.
If you’ve ever tried to create routines with a bunch of your smart home gadgets, then you can understand my frustration about the process in creating these routines manually through the Google Home app. All I want is to easily create a routine where the phone will automatically turn on the lights in my home and unlock the front door as I pull up to the driveway. Getting this to work could be as easy as saying a voice command, or the phone suggesting this routine based on my habits.
In any event, it’s really interesting to see how the fundamental concept of Palm’s Synergy resonates deeply with Samsung’s Personal Data Engine. It’s taken decades to get us to this point, but it’s starting to feel like my phone is becoming more like a reliable assistant.
More from Tom's Guide
