As I delve further into my review process for the Galaxy S25, I’m paying particular attention to all the AI-first features that Samsung lauded during the Galaxy Unpacked showcase event. One of those features is the Now Brief. It pops up throughout your day to deliver information you need based on your usage, like the weather forecast, upcoming calendar events, and news headlines. Eventually, you’ll see stuff from Samsung Health and other exterior apps pop up in there as time progresses and data accumulates. But after nearly a week with the Galaxy S25 Ultra, I’m struggling to understand why a widget is being marketed as a value-add.
Setting up the Now Brief on the Galaxy S25
The Now Brief is turned on by default once you set up any Galaxy S25 models. It has its own settings panel, called the Now brief settings. To get the most use out of it, you must agree to turn on Samsung’s Personal data intelligence, which aggregates the data to serve you. At the very least, Samsung says the feature is processed all on-device, so even if you turn off the Galaxy AI’s ability to ping to the cloud, you can use the Now Brief.
The Now Brief appears on the Galaxy S25’s One UI 7 Lock screen throughout the day. It’s also available in the Now menu—the little sidebar you can swipe out as needed—and as a widget, you can pin it anywhere on the Home screen. To put it bluntly, there’s no excuse not to use the Now Brief, as it’s plastered all over the interface, reminding you to do so.
The Now Brief pulls its data from several different sources. They’re available to toggle on and off in the settings, and the list gives us a glimpse at what is possible with this feature. Apps like Digital Wellbeing and the Samsung Gallery app are on there. If you commute, you’ll see traffic updates pushed through depending on what you have set up through Google Maps. Oddly, this is the only option you can long-press to determine where the source comes from. The rest of the list remains a guessing game. As per the cross-app AI integration, I assume this is all piped explicitly in from Samsung and Google’s apps. There’s also a YouTube Shorts option at the bottom, which hasn’t popped up for me, probably because I don’t use them.
I’ve seen Spotify playlists appear throughout the day, though none are relevant to my type of music. So far, I haven’t clicked on any of the suggested playlists. I will listen to Spotify exclusively on the Galaxy S25 Ultra to see if the suggestions become more specific.
A bunch of awful headlines
I mentioned there’s no way to view the source of specific content in the Now Brief. This was a primary concern when I first picked up the Galaxy S25 and saw the headline the feature was serving. It was the day after the inauguration, and as you can imagine, Samsung News was flooded with headlines about everything I didn’t want to be informed about unless I was tucked in perfectly underneath three layers of security blankets. It was a terrible week for Samsung to launch a new AI feature that delivers relevant headlines. (To which I ask, relevant to whom?)
To give you an idea of how awful the headlines have been thus far, here’s a sampling of the ones I received just in the last week:
- Angelina Jolie ‘So Broke From Brad Pitt Divorce Battle’ She’s Urging Her Six Kids To Get … –RadarOnline
- ‘F- me like crazy’: Former Rudy Giuliani aide claims he raped and sexually abused h... –Law & Crime
- Costco boldly defies Donald Trump’s executive order –Daily Mail
- Non-smoker diagnosed with cancer at 34 after car accident led doctors to find…TODAY
None of those headlines are relevant to anything I’ve ever scoped out on Google (well, maybe the Costco one, but it’s only because I’m a big fan of Costco). I went into the Samsung News app to steer the sources one way. Maybe if I only selected tech news sources, I could keep the content more focused on my interests. It didn’t work. I’d have to spend more time curating Samsung News to get legitimate use out of this specific feature. That means individually striking out every single source that pops up a headline you hope never to encounter again.
I turned off the feature entirely. It left me with a slightly barren bottom of the Now Brief. I hope to fill that space with Samsung Health metrics by getting a new wearable setup with the Galaxy S25 Ultra. I’m especially curious about what comes out after several weeks of usage. But so far, what Samsung has going on with its Now Brief is pretty minuscule compared to an AI feature like, for instance, Google’s Circle-to-Search. I love a landing page as much as anybody, but it’s no fun to use if you can’t fine-tune what gets thrown at you throughout the day.
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