Sure, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 looks like a powerful chip — but there's a bigger feature it could unleash for Android phones

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 announced by Qualcomm this week is certainly a powerful chip, and I've got the benchmarks to prove it. Thanks to improvements covering the CPU and GPU on the new chip, Qualcomm's latest silicon races past the iPhone 17 Pro models and their A19 Pro system-on-chip in many key tests, suggesting you're in for some impressive performance should you buy one of the Android phones that uses the newest Snapdragon chip in the coming months.

And yet, as impressive as the early benchmarks are, that's not what grabs my attention when I look at the full scope of improvements Qualcomm is promising for the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Rather, it's promised AI improvements that make this system-on-chip a potential standout.

Specifically, in its Snapdragon 8 Elite marketing mater