Samsung Electronics Co. Galaxy S24 smartphones during a media preview event in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. Samsung, the world’s most prolific smartphone maker, is leaning into artificial intelligence as the important thing to unlocking greater sales this 12 months. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Samsung could add generative artificial intelligence technology to its voice assistant Bixby, a top executive at the corporate told CNBC, because the South Korean giant looks to boost the appeal of its devices.
Bixby launched in 2017 with Samsung’s Galaxy S8 smartphone. The software offered quite a few functions, including live translations or restaurant recommendations.
But voice assistants have typically been less conversational and have relied on users asking questions and getting answers.
Chatbots at the moment are more advanced and in a position to handle rather more complex queries, after the emergence of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its rivals. These new-age chatbots are an example of generative AI, which allows users to prompt with a question and can generate a response in the shape of text, an image, and now even video.
Samsung’s Bixby is across the corporate’s devices, from smartphones and smartwatches to its appliances. The firm sees it as a key tool for users to manage their devices of their home.
To this point, Bixby has not had the capabilities of ChatGPT.
Like many smartphone makers, Samsung is seeking to infuse its devices with more advanced AI features. The corporate also launched latest features with Galaxy AI, along with its latest S24 series of smartphones. This includes an option that lets users circle something on their screens and seek for it on Google, without having to modify apps.
The tech giant is seeking to amp up its AI with Bixby.
“So Bixby has been a key voice assistants voice assistant for Samsung not only for the mobile devices, but additionally for TVs and digital appliances that exist in Samsung’s ecosystem. So it has been the core voice assistant assistant up to now,” Won-joon Choi, executive vp at Samsung’s mobile business, told CNBC in an interview last month.
“With the emergence of generative AI and LLM (large language model) technology, I think that we now have to redefine the role of the Bixby, in order that Bixby could be equipped with generative AI and turn out to be more smarter in the longer term,” Choi said, adding this can “enable a more natural conversation and to work out an interface that supports the Samsung products in our ecosystem.”
Choi didn’t give a timeline when Bixby may get generative AI features, but said that Samsung is “working so hard” to deliver them.
Samsung’s concentrate on the technology comes at a time when investors are scrutinizing what Apple will deliver when it involves generative AI. Apple announced it would hold its annual developers conference, WWDC, in June, when the corporate is essentially expected to speak up some AI features across its products.