Seoul, April 18, 2026, 02:41 KST
Samsung Electronics has put fresh weight behind Audio Eraser on the Galaxy S26, pushing the tool beyond after-the-fact cleanup and into live playback. In posts published on April 16, Samsung said the feature can adjust voices, music and background noise while videos are streaming, but it named only the Galaxy S26 series and did not spell out whether the same version will reach older flagships such as the Galaxy S25 or S24.
The detail matters because Samsung is leaning harder on software to justify premium phone prices as the market comes under pressure from costlier memory and softer demand. T M Roh, Samsung’s co-CEO, told Reuters in January that the company wanted AI across “all products, all functions, and all services” as quickly as possible, while Counterpoint Research data cited by Reuters showed global smartphone shipments fell 6% in the first quarter. Reuters
Audio Eraser first arrived on the Galaxy S25 as a tool for cleaning up saved clips. Samsung later expanded it to playback inside native apps such as Gallery and Voice Recorder on the Z Fold7 and Z Flip7, and on the S26 line it now sits in the Quick panel, the swipe-down controls menu, where users can switch on Voice Focus or adjust a strength slider without replaying the clip.
Samsung’s U.S. newsroom said the latest version splits sound into six layers — voice, music, wind, nature, crowd and other noise — and works across third-party apps including YouTube, Instagram and Netflix. The company also said support is limited to select apps on the S26 series, may vary by model and operating-system version, and that results are not guaranteed.
That gap has become a story of its own. Samsung’s March 26 and April 9 One UI 8.5 beta announcements — One UI is the company’s Android software layer — show the software is already reaching older devices, including the S24 series in select markets, but the official materials still stop short of a model-by-model Audio Eraser rollout list; follow-up reports from SamMobile and SammyFans said Samsung had discussed bringing more new Galaxy AI tools to the S25 line and that an internal S24 build includes Advanced Audio Eraser.
That gives Samsung a narrower but real talking point against Apple and Google. Google’s Audio Magic Eraser, available on Pixel 8 and later, works through Google Photos on saved video, while Apple’s Audio Mix changes audio after capture on supported iPhone models; Samsung is pitching live filtering during playback instead.
The broader industry is moving the same way. IDC’s Francisco Jeronimo wrote after Mobile World Congress that AI has moved into the “core architecture” of devices, with experience, not just raw specifications, becoming the bigger selling point, and Roh has framed Samsung’s own push as part of a plan to double Galaxy AI devices to 800 million this year. IDC
Still, the back-end work is easy to miss. Samsung researchers said last year that Audio Eraser depended on fast on-device processing with low power use, and researcher Hejung Yang said “wind” was particularly hard to model, suggesting why Samsung may be cautious about older hardware even before it factors in app support and its own accuracy caveats. Samsung Global Newsroom
Analysts remain cautious about how much one AI feature can move buyers. “I don’t think there is really a killer application today,” Forrester analyst Thomas Husson told Reuters at the Galaxy S25 launch, leaving Samsung to show that cleaner live audio is more than a demo — and enough to keep S25 and S24 owners watching the next One UI 8.5 update notes. Reuters
