Samsung’s Bixby, the company’s native virtual voice assistant, is reportedly getting a generative AI upgrade. A report claimed that Bixby will be infused with the South Korean tech giant’s own large language model (LLM) to bring new capabilities and features. However, these features were not disclosed. Earlier this week, the company hosted its second Galaxy Unpacked event of the year and introduced several new Galaxy AI features for the Galaxy Z Fold 6, Galaxy Z Flip 6, and Galaxy Buds 3 series.
Bixby to Reportedly Get an AI Makeover
TM Roh, President and Head of Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics, told CNBC about the development and said, “We’re going to advance Bixby with application of Gen AI technology.” He also added that the new Bixby will be available later this year. This will be a major upgrade in the capability of the virtual voice assistant that was first introduced in 2017 with the Galaxy S8 series.
Compared to the voice assistants offered by competitors such as Google Assistant and Siri, Bixby does offer some unique features. For instance, Bixby Home can update the homepage constantly based on the user’s behaviour and show information about the weather, reminders, news articles, and more. Bixby Vision, on the other hand, allows users to scan an object using the camera on the device. Bixby will then identify it and provide information about it.
While these features make Bixby unique, the Samsung voice assistant struggles with the same issues as other existing assistants — not understanding contextual commands and being incapable of performing complex tasks. These might see an improvement with the integration of AI. Notably, while Roh reportedly mentioned in-house generative AI, he did not specify whether Galaxy AI will be used for this.
The timing of the announcement is also interesting. Last month, Apple introduced its own suite of AI features under the Apple Intelligence umbrella. These AI features were integrated into existing apps. Siri was the main focus with multiple new features including emotive and conversational tone, the capability of performing tasks in third-party apps, and even using ChatGPT to find answers to more tricky queries.
With the new Bixby reported to arrive later this year, it will be interesting to see how the two voice assistants compare with one another.
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