With every passing year, our phones get smarter, more capable and more adept at handling anything we throw at them with speed and precision. Perhaps the biggest contributing factor in enabling this never-ending cycle of improvement is the fresh set of chips that we get on a yearly basis.
When it comes to the top Android phones, almost all of the major manufacturers, Google aside, use Snapdragon chips from Qualcomm. On Wednesday, at the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii, Qualcomm announced its latest flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
This is the processor that will power your next Android flagship phone -- whether it's from Samsung, Xiaomi, Honor or OnePlus, you can pretty much bet on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 being tucked away inside.
Every generation of chip brings crucial speed improvements to a phone's performance, and Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the fastest mobile CPU in the world. But that's not all. Qualcomm has tailored the chip to offer feature-specific improvements -- three of which have caught my eye as being particularly exciting. Here's what to expect.
Watch this: Everything Announced at the Snapdragon Summit 2025 Keynote in 21 Minutes 21:43
AI, but personalized
AI agents have become another part of our AI vernacular, and Qualcomm's new chip has more support for agentic AI, like Personal Scribe. James Martin/CNET
Qualcomm has been at the forefront of making our phones powerful enough to run AI applications, but the latest chip specifically enables a much more personal AI experience.
Qualcomm's Personal Scribe is an agentic AI assistant that can make recommendations and act on your behalf based on your routine and preferences. For example, the Scribe knows you could use more free time in your day, so it might suggest some non-essential meetings or tasks that you could push to make space.
Personal Scribe is a product of Qualcomm's new Sensing Hub, which can learn about you and your behavior as you use your phone to enable agentic AI. The premise of agentic AI is that it will sit across your apps and services, deploying the knowledge and understanding it has about you to make recommendations and take action in ways that will benefit you.
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