It’s just that on 10 July, surrounded by a lot of fanfare in Paris, Samsung rolled out a new lineup of foldables, such as the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Flip 6, along with new Galaxy earbuds and smartwatches. The event was heavy on touting the capabilities of Galaxy AI, but what has been noticeable is the omission of any reference to Bixby, the voice assistant from Samsung.
However, TM Roh, Samsung’s mobile chief, told CNBC that a new and improved, AI-driven Bixby is coming. The updated version is due to be released later this year and will use Samsung’s own large language model rather than turning to third-party devices.
The last major update that happened to Bixby was way back early in 2023, which brought the on-device mode and improved a bit of performance, expanding Bixby Text Call to more countries. Updates have been few and far between this year, save for some UI changes.
Samsung is reportedly going to push the updated Bixby experience via a public beta program starting at the end of July or early August, aligning with One UI 7.
Bixby AI integration—a Strategic Move of Samsung
While other tech giants are integrating AI into their voice assistants, Samsung is handling the situation completely differently. Until now, Bixby had fallen behind Galaxy AI in AI integration.
Google was on its way to shift Assistant with Gemini while Apple introduced its Apple Intelligence-driven Siri with iOS 18. But Samsung is making an ability and experience of Bixby using generative AI.
Even with this, Samsung won’t end support for other voice assistants on its devices. It is leveraging an existing relationship with Google to provide some exclusive features on the Galaxy first.
What has been done here by Samsung is enhancing the operation of Bixby with AI. In the competitive market, this will indeed give a distinction to its voice assistant and thus provide users with an intuitive and responsive experience throughout its ecosystem.
