The tea is officially boiling and it smells like silicon and corporate desperation. If you thought your smartphone was just a tool for taking filtered selfies at Brunch and Grazia, think again. Samsung East Africa is out here rebranding your device as a “proactive life companion.” Wueh! Since when did we start dating our hardware? Ryan Mule, the man of the hour at Samsung, is busy telling anyone who will listen that AI is the new “meaningful innovation” for Kanairo’s struggling hustlers. But let’s be real for a second. This “AI revolution” is just a fancy way to make you upgrade a phone that worked perfectly fine last year.

The AI Scam or Real Value?

Samsung claims they are “democratizing AI” by putting it in the mid-range A-series. Translation: they want to make sure everyone, from the CEO in Upper Hill to the student in Umoja, is being tracked by the same sophisticated algorithms. They talk about “Circle to Search” and “Live Translate” like they’ve discovered fire. We’ve had Google for years, darling. Now they want us to believe that having an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) is the only way to survive the Nairobi streets. They are calling it a “Digital Assistant,” but in this economy, the only assistant I need is one that finds where the cheap fuel is hidden.

The corporate panic is real. Just like The Starlink War: Why Safaricom is Panic-Screaming, Samsung is sweating because they know that hardware specs don’t impress us anymore. Every phone looks the same. To keep the chapaa flowing, they have to pivot to “on-device intelligence.” It’s a classic move: create a problem (too many notifications) and then sell the solution (an AI that silences your phone for you). Why am I paying six figures for a phone to tell me to be quiet? I can do that for free.

Security or Just a Web of Trust?

Let’s talk about Samsung Knox. They call it “military-grade security” and a “web of trust.” To me, it sounds like a very expensive digital fence. They claim your data never leaves the phone, but then they mention “open collaboration” and “AI modeling.” You don’t need a PhD from UoN to see the contradiction here. If the AI is learning from you, it knows you. It knows your late-night searches, your M-Pesa patterns, and exactly which “bestie” you are archived on WhatsApp.

Ryan Mule says the phone will “anticipate your needs.” In Kanairo, if someone anticipates your needs, they are usually trying to sell you a pyramid scheme or an overpriced apartment in Kilimani. The idea of a phone that “grows with you” is honestly a bit creepy. I don’t want my phone to grow. I want it to stay the same size and not break when it falls off a boda boda.

The February Trap

And of course, the grand finale of this PR dance is the “Galaxy Unpacked” event this February. They are already teasing the new S-series like it’s the second coming. They promise “unprecedented processing power” and “sophisticated privacy.” It’s the same script every year, just with more buzzwords. They want you to feel like your current S24 is a stone-age relic so you can rush to the shops and swipe your credit card.

Before you fall for the “AI revolution” hype, ask yourself if you really need a phone that “understands the lighting of a Serengeti sunset.” Most of us are just trying to take a clear photo of our lunch in a dimly lit kibanda. Samsung is selling us a “digital future,” but many of us are still stuck in a very analogue present. Stay woke, Kanairo. Your phone might be smart, but don’t let it be smarter than you.