Samsung unveils Bixby AI voice assistance

Samsung Electronics began offering full service of its voice-powered assistant Bixby on its Galaxy S8 and S8+ phones Monday, about 10 days after the phones’ official release.

The artificial intelligence agent Bixby uses deep-learning technology to recognize users’ voices, pronunciation and overall speaking habits more accurately over time and executes orders that other assistants, usually centered on finding information from a database, can’t, a company statement said Monday.

The AI agent works on about 10 Samsung phone apps including Gallery, Calculator, Weather and Bixby Vision, which recognizes products based on their photographic image, for now. Still, the assistant can accomplish more than 3,000 tasks, the company said.

They include in-app tasks not possible on Apple’s Siri, which can only open apps and performs simple tasks like sending text messages or playing music. According to Samsung, Bixby can complete most tasks formerly performed by touch.

For instance, if you ask Bixby to “bookmark this web page and save it as ‘restaurant’” while web surfing, the virtual assistant would create a bookmark for the page and save it under the name restaurant. Also, if you order Bixby to “share this photo and upload it on Facebook,” while skimming though your photo gallery, the AI will open Facebook and do so.

Bixby can be activated by voice command or by using a button on the left of Galaxy S8 and S8+ phones.

For now, the program, is available only in Korean. Samsung said it will add English in the first half of this year and, later, other languages.

BY KIM JEE-HEE [kim.jeehee@joongang.co.kr]