Samsung S25 Ultra on display at one of Samsung’s stores in London, U.K. Samsung has boosted the capabilities of the S25 on the Ultra model.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
Samsung Electronics on Wednesday launched its latest flagship smartphones — the Galaxy S25 series — touting a custom chip and boosted AI features.
The S25 release comes after a year in which Samsung’s smartphone shipments came under pressure from Chinese players and Apple.
Samsung’s S25 series comes in three variants — the S25, S25+ and the S25 Ultra — as has been the case with previous flagship launches.
The starting prices are as follows:
Galaxy S25: $799
Galaxy S25+: $999
Galaxy S25 Ultra: $1,299
Samsung will start taking preorders for the S25 series on Wednesday and the devices will go on sale on Feb. 7.
Samsung Galaxy AI front and center
Last year, Samsung launched Galaxy AI — its suite of artificial intelligence features — on the S24.
With the S25, Samsung unveiled additional AI applications with the aim of making the phone more like a digital personal assistant.
Samsung’s latest devices can carry out tasks across multiple apps when prompted. For example, a user can ask the phone to find their favorite football team’s schedule and add it to their calendar. Or a user could prompt the AI application to find nearby pet-friendly restaurants to send to a specific contact. All of these actions will be carried out by the device across multiple apps.
Samsung said the feature supports third-party apps like Spotify and Meta-owned WhatsApp, as well as its own and Google‘s apps.
The AI application can also change settings on the phone when prompted by a user.
Samsung’s latest features underscore the way in which the South Korean tech giant and some of its rivals are racing to make AI on devices more like personal assistants that cater to a person’s usage habits and preferences.
The Samsung S25 series consists of three devices – the S25, S25+ and S25 Ultra.
Device makers view AI as way to differentiate their hardware from the sea of competitors. Samsung, for example, is hoping the technology will help revive sales for its high-end product.
“At a time when improvements to hardware capabilities and product design are largely incremental, Samsung is doubling down on its AI story. There are some clever enhancements included in the Galaxy S25 line-up, but it’s unlikely they’ll be enough to have consumers rushing out to upgrade their phones prematurely,” Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, told CNBC.
“However, this is far from being a unique issue for Samsung. Apple is facing the same challenges with the iPhone 16 and Apple Intelligence. AI is a boon for someone who needs an upgrade, but not enough to move the needle for consumers who have a relatively up-to-date phone already.”
Shipments of Samsung smartphones fell 2.7% year on year in the fourth quarter of last year as its market share contracted, according to International Data Corp. figures. Samsung was the No. 2 player by shipment volume after Apple.
Meanwhile, Chinese players Xiaomi, Transsion and Vivo increased market share, with aggressively priced devices boasting solid specs.
CCS Insight’s Wood concluded that the S25 series is “well suited to the growing number of consumers who have a mobile phone that’s three or four years old” but “it’s unlikely to get people upgrading any sooner.”
Custom chip, new design
To power its latest AI features, Samsung and Qualcomm worked on a custom processor. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy is exclusive to Samsung with the South Korean giant claiming it is the fastest processor ever in a Galaxy device.
Fast but low power consumption processors inside of smartphones are vital for ensuring management of heavy AI workloads without draining the battery.
Samsung also talked up other changes to the hardware including an improved camera on the S25 Ultra model and new design.
The S25 series now has rounded corners rather than the more angular design of its predecessors.
Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup based in London. It competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.
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LONDON — ElevenLabs, a London-based startup that specializes in generating synthetic voices through artificial intelligence, has revealed plans to be IPO-ready within five years.
The company told CNBC it is targeting major global expansion as it prepares for an initial public offering.
“We expect to build more hubs in Europe, Asia and South America, and just keep scaling,” Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs’ CEO and co-founder, told CNBC in an interview at the firm’s London office.
He identified Paris, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico as potential new locations. London is currently ElevenLabs’ biggest office, followed by New York, Warsaw, San Francisco, Japan, India and Bangalore.
Staniszewski said the eventual aim is to get the company ready for an IPO in the next five years.
“From a commercial standpoint, we would like to be ready for an IPO in that time,” he said. “If the market is right, we would like to create a public company … that’s going to be here for the next generation.”
Undecided on location
Founded in 2022 by Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup that competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.
The company divides its business into three main camps: consumer-facing voice assistants, integrations with corporates such as Cisco, and tailor-made applications for specific industries like health care.
Staniszewski said the firm hasn’t yet decided where it could list, but that this decision will largely rest on where most of its users are located at the time.
“If the U.K. is able to start accelerating,” ElevenLabs will consider London as a listing destination, Staniszewski said.
The city has faced criticisms from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that its stock market is unfavorable toward high-growth tech firms.
Meanwhile, British money transfer firm Wiselast month said it plans to move its primary listing location to the U.S.,
Fundraising plans
ElevenLabs was valued at $3.3 billion following a recent $180 million funding round. The company is backed by the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and ICONIQ Growth, as well as corporate names like Salesforce and Deutsche Telekom.
Staniszewski said his startup was open to raising more money from VCs, but it would depend on whether it sees a valid business need, like scaling further in other markets. “The way we try to raise is very much like, if there’s a bet we want to take, to accelerate that bet [we will] take the money,” he said.
Synopsys logo is seen displayed on a smartphone with the flag of China in the background.
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The U.S. government has rescinded its export restrictions on chip design software to China, U.S.-based Synopsys announced Thursday.
“Synopsys is working to restore access to the recently restricted products in China,” it said in a statement.
The U.S. had reportedly told several chip design software companies, including Synopsys, in May that they were required to obtain licenses before exporting goods, such as software and chemicals for semiconductors, to China.
The U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
The news comes after China signaled last week that they are making progress on a trade truce with the U.S. and confirmed conditional agreements to resume some exchanges of rare earths and advanced technology.
The Datadog stand is being displayed on day one of the AWS Summit Seoul 2024 at the COEX Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul, South Korea, on May 16, 2024.
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Datadog shares were up 10% in extended trading on Wednesday after S&P Global said the monitoring software provider will replace Juniper Networks in the S&P 500 U.S. stock index.
S&P Global is making the change effective before the beginning of trading on July 9, according to a statement.
Computer server maker Hewlett Packard Enterprise, also a constituent of the index, said earlier on Wednesday that it had completed its acquisition of Juniper, which makes data center networking hardware. HPE disclosed in a filing that it paid $13.4 billion to Juniper shareholders.
Over the weekend, the two companies reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, which had sued in opposition to the deal. As part of the settlement, HPE agreed to divest its global Instant On campus and branch business.
While tech already makes up an outsized portion of the S&P 500, the index has has been continuously lifting its exposure as the industry expands into more areas of society.
Stocks often rally when they’re added to a major index, as fund managers need to rebalance their portfolios to reflect the changes.
New York-based Datadog went public in 2019. The company generated $24.6 million in net income on $761.6 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2025, according to a statement. Competitors include Cisco, which bought Splunk last year, as well as Elastic and cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon and Microsoft.
Datadog has underperformed the broader tech sector so far this year. The stock was down 5.5% as of Wednesday’s close, while the Nasdaq was up 5.6%. Still, with a market cap of $46.6 billion, Datadog’s valuation is significantly higher than the median for that index.