It was first reported a few months ago that Samsung is developing a new virtual assistant that it’s going to call Bixby. The new assistant is expected to debut with the Galaxy S8 next year. According to a new report, Bixby is going to replace the existing S Voice service on the handset and that it’s going to work with all stock apps on the Galaxy S8 to provide additional functionality.
It merits mentioning here that Samsung recently acquired Viv Labs, an artificial intelligence company. It’s that company’s technology that will prove to be instrumental in the development of Samsung’s new virtual assistant with which it aims to rival the Siris and Cortanas of the world.
If that’s really going to be the case, Bixby will replace S Voice on the Galaxy S8 and will work with all stock apps on the handset to provide enhanced functionality. What this means is that users will just be able to ask Bixby to surface certain pictures and videos from the Gallery app.
The possibilities would be endless, with Bixby helping users with mundane tasks like creating reminders to saving new contacts, sending emails, and more. Perhaps Samsung will enable Bixby to work with third-party apps as well so that it can do things like hail an Uber when given the command.
Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S8 at a special event in New York come April. The rumor mill appears to be in agreement so far that Samsung is not going to launch the handset at Mobile World Congress 2017 in February as previously expected.
