Motorola’s ‘Swiss Army Knife’ Take on AI Makes My Head Spin

Moto AI’s presence on the new 2025 Motorola Razr lineup isn’t a surprise, but the company’s Swiss Army knife approach might stand out even more than the Alcantara fabric seen on the $1,300 Razr Ultra.

Instead of going it alone and mimicking the AI efforts we’re seeing from Samsung, Google and Apple, Moto AI appears to be building a coalition of AI partners. Perplexity, Meta’s Llama AI, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini all are meant to peacefully coexist alongside Motorola’s own AI features on the Razr. Instead of acting like five different AI apps, many features either run when they’re directly summoned or they’re more passive.

While Apple has integrations for ChatGPT in Siri and Visual Intelligence, no other phone-maker has taken this integrated AI approach. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) Partnering with so many different AI companies takes the pressure off Motorola to do all the work and could instantly benefit Razr owners. And all that might quickly elevate the Razr phones to some of the most flexible AI phones sold today, by virtue of having so many built-in options.

Moto AI: Too much of a good thing

When Motorola began presenting each of these AI partnerships, the options made my head spin. Some people are still figuring out what they want to use AI for, and expecting them to understand four different services seems like a high bar to entry. But Motorola’s approach is to embed these services into specific functions, which might help spell out more efficient ways for people to make the most of them.

Allison Yi, Motorola’s North American Product Portfolio lead, said that the approach is intentional, so Motorola’s AI efforts avoid duplicating what’s already available in Android while giving customers fast access to whichever AI engine they prefer.

“We are partners with Google, we believe that they do have a very capable, powerful camera experience like Magic Eraser… but if you look at our Moto AI experiences, it’s in addition to what Google made Android able to provide,” Yi told CNET.

Yes, you can say “Ask Perplexity” or “Ask Copilot,” but Motorola’s approach appears to let you begin with a more natural request. I should be able to say, “What movies are playing tonight at the movie theater around 7 p.m.?” and while Moto AI is fetching that answer, its Next Move feature might suggest ways I can take public transit or an Uber to the movie theater. We’ll have to test it out to see if that’s truly the case, but that would be a more proactive way of stringing together what I want to do in less time.

This would also line up with an AI concept Motorola demonstrated last year at Lenovo Tech World, in which an AI assistant handled actions based on a user’s request without switching between multiple services. The example was based on asking an assistant to order a cup of coffee: The AI assistant sent the order directly to a coffee shop without needing to use another app. Moto AI hasn’t partnered with any coffee shops, although voice assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant have shortcut-style app integrations to apps from Starbucks, Dunkin’ and other services.

Perplexity on Razr

If the approach pays off, Perplexity stands to benefit the most from being integrated on the Razr. Perplexity AI is triggered when you open the Perplexity app, ask for Perplexity via the Moto AI assistant or if you make a request — such as asking for ideas on how to plan a vacation — it activates itself. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said that his company’s services will run even when the Razr is shut.  

Perplexity is also part of Moto AI’s Next Move feature, which scans what’s onscreen and will offer suggestions based on what it sees, similar to Gemini Live. This could include saving a recipe that you’re looking at, streaming a video based on the recipe or generating a cooking music playlist. Perplexity has a similar spotlight in the upcoming AI Phone, which is being developed in its partnership with Deutsche Telekom for release later this year.

Meta Llama AI on Razr

Meta’s Llama AI takes lead on Motorola’s Catch Me Up feature, which will summarize notifications down to essential information like grouping the major points of a recent group chat. Llama will also let you provide a prompt to reply in-line to a message notification summary. While I would prefer to doublecheck what the AI is summarizing before replying, even getting the gist of all the pings my phone received could help cut down on time.

Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini on Razr

For more general queries, the Razr line gets two options that you can access across two different buttons. If you press the Moto AI button, you can say “Ask Copilot” and then your request for information will run through Microsoft’s AI assistant. Motorola also teased a deeper Copilot experience, but for now the feature acts more like an advanced search engine.

And if you would prefer to use Google’s Gemini, you can press and hold the power button to launch that AI assistant in the same method that it’s accessible on most other Android phones. As Gemini begins to supplant the Google Assistant, it will likely be the default service for accessing smart home controls and similar applications currently handled by Google Assistant.

Camera AI for Razr

All this sits alongside Motorola’s own AI efforts, which also include a variety of active and passive photography enhancements. These start with AI assisting with low-light photography. The effect is achieved with a combination of AI and hardware, according to Mauricio Moises, Motorola’s senior product manager of camera.

“[The Razr phones] feature a special functionality we call the Photo Enhancement Engine. The Photo Enhancement Engine is totally raw [file] based, and it helps you not just for the day by day lighting conditions but it’s also especially good on noise suppression,” Moises said. 

Motorola also offers a Signature Style option for customizing the look and feel of photos. AI scans what’s happening within the photo to make additional color and contrast tweaks, including optional tweaks you can manually add.

“The Signature Style which has this whole AI methodology behind that understands the context of the scene, and more importantly, the processing time for that is super, super fast,” Moises said. “But if you’re still not satisfied with the preset, nor the natural tone, you can still customize your own version.”

Can Moto AI figure out what we want AI for?

Motorola is unique in relying on multiple partners to develop the Razr’s AI efforts. But to a lesser degree, Apple’s partnership with ChatGPT has a similar flexibility. When first introducing its AI efforts at WWDC 2024, Apple said it plans to make future integrations with other AI technologies similar to the ChatGPT integration. While Apple hasn’t yet done that, it’s easy to imagine the company supplementing its “ask ChatGPT” prompt with any number of other sources.

There’s also the matter of phone buyers already being exhausted by AI. My CNET colleague Abrar Al-Heeti, who recently visited Mobile World Congress where numerous AI phone concepts were being demonstrated, says that the features will have a better chance of being accepted when people can feel their efficiency.

“Once AI can seamlessly work in the background to carry out tasks across apps, and do so fairly inconspicuously, it’ll be embraced by more people. There’s a real sense of AI fatigue among many consumers who see it as a buzzword, but once it gets baked further into their devices and services without constantly reminding them that this is AI-powered, they’ll be less resistant to the idea,” Al-Heeti said.

And with AI’s role on mobile phones still being defined, perhaps having multiple partners for Razr buyers to choose from will help these customers figure out exactly what they want Moto AI to do most. And as that purpose is further refined, Motorola might be able to tweak its future AI plans accordingly, whether it’s with its partnerships or its own AI development.