Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Gemini Intelligence Hands On First Impressions

So, with the launch of the Galaxy Z48, Samsung is also shipping the first devices with Gemini intelligence pre-installed. And I managed to get it working briefly, but I actually can't see why or what it solves for most people. Now, after being showcased preio at the Android show, we really haven't seen much from Google regarding Gemini Intelligence. It probably was expected that maybe it would come and debut on the upcoming Pixel 11 series, but likely as a tighter partnership with Samsung, it's actually launching alongside the Korean tech giants latest foldables and their smart watches. Before launch, as is customary, we were able to spend some time with these foldable devices, and we were told that Gemini Intelligence would

not be available until after these devices actually had shipped. However, this could have been a little bit of an oversight as I was actually able to do some basic things with the Aentic AI due to how Samsung phones have certain services pre-installed. And because they ship with a suite of applications here in Europe, including Expedia pre-installed, I was able to replicate a demo that was showcased to us before Unpacked itself. It's fairly simple and it lets you automate doing things like booking a trip, a flight or a hotel, even an Uber if you have that ride share app installed when without risking hundreds of angry Uber drivers turning up at the destination I was at and

looking to take me on a non-existent trip. I kind of stuck to the simple demo given to us by booking a flight from an airport from a specific destination. And to my surprise, it seemed to work. For anyone wondering, this is effectively an expansion of the app automation feature that was actually launched alongside the Galaxy S26 and limited to a handful of mostly food ordering applications like Door Dash, Uber Eats, that kind of thing. But it is now going to work on over 40 applications and integrated itself, probably renamed as well to Gemini Intelligence. This new enhancement is better at understanding context or intent. While app automation was uh and is a fairly simple if then else based limited option for selective

applications in theory Gemini Intelligence should work with any application have better context better awareness but it isn't available everywhere just yet for anyone wondering the process of launching into Gemini intelligence is basically indistinguishable from the regular old Gemini old Gemini that feels weird saying that out loud you can just long press the power button or use your voice to with the aonomous wake phrase. Trust me, I'm not going to say it here and set your devices off. And then Gemini itself will appear from here. Just ask for a specific task. So in my case, as with the demo Samsung showed us before, let me loose on these new pieces of hardware. I simply asked the AI to book

a flight from London to Heath from London Heathro to Dublin a week in advance. Here's the good news. This process worked. However, I found that it had to be quite precise because if I said, "Book a flight from X location to Y destination," Gemini would pump out a text feed with pricing and information on upcoming flights or give me information on airline offerings, not going in through the process. By adding the day or date qualifier, this is when Gemini Intelligence would activate or wake up. That said, it would sometimes do this without this extra information snippet, which kind of confused me further. Still technically this function is still in beta. So of the 20 plus

times I tried it, there were a few instances when Gemini asked which application I wanted to use to try and book a flight or a hotel. I wasn't able to install applications on this device, which does mean that it did stop me from exploring the functionalities of Gemini Intelligence further, which is why I kept it a little bit simple. One thing I did find a little bit weird, though, is that you don't even need to confirm anything before Gemini Intelligence takes control. It'll just do the work so long as the apps capable of doing the thing that you want or need are installed on your phone. Like app automations, Gemini just shows a working on your task notification alongside the

apps being used. You can tap a large view progress button to watch as this automation unfolds in real time. More on that in just a second, though. What was immediately interesting to me though is that on Samsung phones, the pop-ups look nothing like the previews we saw during the Android show, which feature material 3 expressive redesigns. The pop-ups actually look like regular prompts and notifications that fit within the rest of 1 UI 9. I kind of figured the company will put its own visual spin on this. Instead, well, it looks pretty rudimentary for such a powerful feature. The only obvious change is a colorful glow that emanates from these pop-ups and notifications. I didn't see a status

bar icon when a task is running, which I thought was a little bit weird, but I do like it gives I do like that it gives you a running commentary of what's actually going on if you expand the notification. For instance, it'll tell you what Gemini is typing into the search box or what time it selected a flight, especially in the test that I was doing. Google has been selling this feature as automated, and it does work away in the background. Again, as with app automations, you can step in at any time if you want to take over if you want, or as I did a few times, watch the entire process within the Gemini application. You get a full running commentary of what Gemini is doing with

the app screen running in a siloed window, which is nice to see. My biggest problem is with how it works or how long it seems to take that is. In some cases, it could take a couple of minutes to do the leg work before you're asked to step in. On my phone, I could probably do this a lot faster and more accurately than Gemini, and I could probably do it in a few seconds, which kind of leaves me scratching my head as to who this really benefits. For instance, I had no input on the exact flight time, and I couldn't even choose my preferred airline. Gemini Intelligence didn't ask me any of these details before it went off, nor did it ask me during the process. On a site like Expedia that might offer hundreds of thousands of

flights from various airlines, this kind of feels like an important omission. A human wouldn't make that mistake as those parameters are clearly very important from person to person, especially as some airports, not necessarily where they say they are. As I said, you can jump in at any time and course correct, which is nice to see. Once you've done that, you can let Gemini take over the task again and complete it or take it as far as it can to the completion state. I'm not sure if this is the case for every Gemini Intelligence automation, but you do have to take over when you reach the customer data screen and such as adding things like passenger information. And as I say, we didn't get to see the full suite

Gemini intelligence here. So, it didn't autocomplete that option for me because I wasn't able to log into the device. As I say, this might not be the case for every single task. And I don't know if you are logged into the app, like logged into Expedia for instance, that it could probably be populated automatically. I do think that would be a bit of an obvious option to add at least at some point in the future. So I'm aware I've only used a snippet of the potential of Gemini intelligence here and Google said you can do much more and we've been showing us much more like take a photo of a brochure for instance and have your device search for that and book an option for multiple guests. But in lie

of that, I had to try doing this using voice commands. nor was I able to deeply integrate into my own email list and get potentially an email of PC parts and then add all of those PC parts to a shopping list or a cart on PC part picker. That would have been a nice option, but as I say, I was unable to personalize or access my personalized information. Even in those cases, I'm actually unsure that this would be of much value to all but the most terminally online tech nerd. I think AI is great when directed correctly or owned in a direction, but there's still too much handholding and that feels or at least this feels like the perfect example of that. Gemini intelligence clearly works and I do think it works

fairly well when it's set off to do its own thing, provided you give it clear and obvious guidance. Even so, I don't think I'd ever really be truly confident enough to have it handle important tasks like booking a flight or even as it's being able to do through app automations, food delivery without going through manually and checking all of the intricacies because I don't want it to make mistakes and potentially cost me money. In theory, it's a great concept, a concept that I don't think many people are going to use all that often. Maybe there are edge cases like, I don't know, getting in line for gig tickets or checking into things or just filling in all the data from a booking

that you're about to make. Maybe I could see myself using it to book an Uber if I'm going from one destination and I just want to go home because Uber already has that saved, but I don't necessarily think it's going to be save me enough time to be truly valuable. I don't actually think or know anyone that would potentially trust Gemini to book a flight for them for them based on just a brochure that they found or an ad that they've seen online. And I don't think I would either. And I'm someone who is in bed with [clears throat] this kind of hardware and software technology or whatever it is every single day. The minimal effort required to do those tasks, I think, is so trivial that this Gemini Intelligence

feels like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Yes, it works, but I do think it's inefficient and dare I say a little bit pointless. Just tempering my critique a little bit right at the end of this video. I think because app automations have been available in the US and Korea since the S26 launched, I hadn't had the full opportunity to try that precursor. So, my expectations were different ahead of going into this, I was also missing some of those key integrations and those all important personalizations to really take advantage of the identic aspects of Gemini intelligence. So, in that sense, this was a very basic demo and not necessarily truly representative of the full experience due to the various

limitations and lack of personalizations that you have on these pre-release units. Even so, I can't help but feel like it isn't necessarily the killer feature that some people are expecting. It might be to some other people, but yeah, I'm a little bit disappointed, I guess. But I will hopefully get to test this fully in the coming weeks and months when this does roll out to more devices and I'll get to properly try it with some personalized data. Let me know if you've got any questions or comments down in the comment sections below. I always love to hear your thoughts and feedback. But yeah, as always, thanks for watching. Hopefully you've enjoyed

this and I'll speak to you later.