Samsung could soon upgrade its native voice assistant Bixby with generative artificial intelligence features, as per a report. Bixby was introduced by the South Korean tech giant in 2017 with the Samsung Galaxy S8 series as a replacement for its S Voice assistant. Ever since, Samsung users have had the option to use Bixby as the default voice assistant instead of Google Assistant. Now, a company executive has reportedly revealed that Samsung is planning to “make it smarter” by bringing AI features to the assistant.
Won-joon Choi, Executive Vice President, Mobile Business, Samsung, spoke with CNBC and said, “So Bixby has been a key voice assistant for Samsung not just for the mobile devices, but also for TVs and digital appliances that exist in Samsung’s ecosystem. So it has been the core voice assistant assistant so far.” Notably, Bixby competes with Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and the Google Assistant in the voice assistant segment.
Choi also highlighted the need to improve the product with the help of AI and large language models (LLMs) to make it smarter than it already is. He told CNBC, “With the emergence of generative AI and LLM (large language model) technology, I believe that we have to redefine the role of the Bixby, so that Bixby could be equipped with generative AI and become more smarter in the future.” Further, he also added that the AI could enable a more natural conversation with users as well as bring a new interface that would also support other products in the Samsung ecosystem.
While the report did not mention the features that could be added to Bixby, recently, Google allowed users to use its Gemini AI as assistant on Android-powered smartphones. The voice assistant can answer a call, snooze an alarm, and run basic Google searches to answer queries.
It also performs advanced tasks such as opening an app, turning on the flashlight, control smart home appliances, and more. Additionally, it can generate content, suggest itineraries for a trip, help make a recipe from ingredients at home, and all other tasks that AI chatbots can do.