Bixby AI: Samsung prepares its voice assistant for natural conversations

In an interview with CNBC, Samsung detailed how its voice assistant Bixby can hold more natural conversations with users in the future using generative AI

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Samsung is planning to equip its virtual assistant Bixby with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to improve its conversational capabilities. In an interview with CNBC, Samsung Mobile’s executive vice president Won-joon Choi detailed how the company plans on improving its voice assistant’s functionality and usability in the future.

“Bixby has been a key voice assistant for Samsung not just for mobile devices, but also for TVs and digital appliances that exist in Samsung’s ecosystem,” said Choi. “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,” he added.

Choi did not provide any details about how the company plans on incorporating genAI with the voice assistant but said that it would “enable a more natural conversation and to work out an interface that supports the Samsung products in our ecosystem.” He also stated that Samsung has been actively working on this project.

According to reports, Samsung is planning to bring ChatGPT like features to Bixby, making it capable of generating more natural sounding responses with added functionality such as summarisation of online articles and documents, personalised suggestions for restaurants, places, and more.

It was earlier reported that Samsung has been planning to bring more powerful AI tools in paid tier. During an interview with ET Telecom, President of Samsung’s mobile division, TM Roh said that the company only plans to provide AI features for free on its devices until 2025. He indicated more powerful AI features on Samsung’s smartphone, for which the company may necessitates subscription. It is likely that Samsung is planning on a more powerful version of Bixby as part of the subscription plan for Samsung smartphone users.