Samsung gives Galaxy AI a single switch called Process data only on device. I used it on my Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, assuming none of my AI requests would ever leave my phone.
To verify this claim, I logged every connection my phone made while I used Samsung’s AI features.
Samsung’s photo tools kept their promise, but the switch does not cover the smarter AI-powered Bixby in One UI 8.5 in any way. Every command I spoke went to Samsung’s servers.
Samsung’s switch only covers what it lists
My Photo Assist edits never left the phone
You can find the setting under Settings > Galaxy AI. Tapping its label instead of the toggle opens a list of features that keep running on the device, and Bixby isn’t on that list.
I logged traffic with PCAPdroid, a free app that records each connection without root. It shows which app connected, where the data went, and how many bytes left, but it can’t read encrypted content.
I started with Photo Assist, since editing personal photos felt like the riskiest test. With the switch on, Photo Editor checked my Samsung account, contacted a consent server, and fetched settings after sending about 4.4KB.
A single photo was about 2MB, so the traffic shows that none of my edits left the phone. When an edit needed the cloud, the app asked me to turn off the switch first.
Now Brief did the same, asking me to turn off the switch before I could build anything that needed the cloud.
Bixby sent my questions to Samsung first
Samsung passes web questions to Perplexity
I typed three web questions into Bixby with the switch on. Each one sent about 17KB to a Samsung server at aibixby.com, and the three uploads were within about 1KB of each other.
There’s no indication in the Galaxy AI menu that Samsung keeps reviving Bixby as a separate assistant with its own rules. Holding the side button opens Gemini by default, so its privacy settings are easy to overlook.
Each answer included a Sources button with Perplexity’s logo. Samsung confirmed Perplexity as the engine behind Bixby’s real-time web search when it announced the new Bixby.
My logs didn’t show my phone talking to Perplexity directly. Samsung’s servers receive the question and pass it along, so the handoff happens where you can’t track it.
Loading one answer triggered even more traffic. Bixby reached 15 websites in about seven seconds, including Waze, Pakistani news sites, and some machinery sites I didn’t recognize.
The answer also included a note asking me to update my location-sharing settings for more precise results. This suggests Bixby already sends an approximate location with each question, so it’s not just my words leaving the phone.
Spoken commands uploaded much more data
Samsung’s policy says where my voice goes
I spoke 10 commands with the switch still on, including setting a 5-minute timer, turning on dark mode, and setting the screen brightness.
Bixby opened and maintained one connection to Samsung for about three minutes and sent about 540KB.
That’s about 54KB per command, which is around three times what each typed question sent. The extra data indicates that voice audio was sent rather than text, since none of those commands needed anything from the web.
Samsung’s US privacy policy says the company collects voice recordings on its servers when you use voice commands. With that policy in writing, I don’t have to guess where my voice went.
Bixby’s offline mode only takes exact commands
The natural-language feature never works offline
Bixby has its own local mode, and Samsung doesn’t mention it in the Galaxy AI menu. You can turn it on under Settings > Apps > Bixby Voice > Bixby Voice settings > Offline processing.
This setting is not particularly easy to find.
Samsung only promises this mode for simple commands like timers and screenshots. So I turned it on, switched to airplane mode, and tried my commands again.
“Set a timer for five minutes” and “turn on dark mode” both worked, but they failed after I phrased them the way I normally talk.
Samsung’s showcase phrasing, “I don’t want the screen to time out while I’m looking at it,” also failed. So did “my eyes hurt when I use my phone at night,” which should switch on the Eye comfort shield.
Natural speech is the new Bixby’s main selling point, yet requests phrased that way still need Samsung’s servers to work.
Given that Bixby handles device control far better than Gemini, losing natural phrasing offline means losing its main advantage.
The switch needs to cover Samsung’s own assistant
I still keep the Galaxy AI switch on because it does what it says for Samsung’s photo tools.
What bothers me is that its name sounds like a promise for the whole phone. However, Samsung’s assistant follows separate rules in a menu most owners never open.
Adding Bixby to that feature list, or linking Offline processing from it, would make the switch mean what it appears to mean.
Until Samsung does that, disabling Bixby on my Galaxy phone is the only sure way to keep my voice off its servers.
