Samsung pushes out more English features for Bixby voice assistant

Samsung pushes out more English features for Bixby voice assistant

Samsung’s AI-based voice assistant, Bixby, is getting a host of quality-of-life updates, and it’s expanding its usefulness to more markets worldwide.

Samsung’s latest Bixby statement said that the new Bixby updates “bring several new features and improvements” for users to customise Bixby’s functionality even further, using the recent English addition of Bixby Text Call as an example. Bixby Text Call now lets English speakers answer calls by typing messages, and the voice assistant will speak on your behalf.

Bixby Text Voice has a new Custom Voice Creator feature. Similar to Bixby Text Call, the voice feature lets users record a clip of their sentences, and Bixby’s AI will generate a copy of their voice and tone. This feature is currently available in Korean, and the voice generated is meant to be compatible with other Samsung apps (outside of phone calls).  

Further enhanced is Bixby’s ability to understand intent, based on a series of requests and the context it has. Samsung gave the example of asking Bixby to start Samsung Health workout tracking, and telling Bixby to “play music for this workout” would make Bixby pick an appropriate workout playlist. According to Samsung, this new context-based AI is available to eight unnamed scenarios and it will support more languages in the future (currently available in Korean).

Finally, Bixby now supports more key commands while offline, enhancing its on-device AI support. Specifically, native applications (apps the only require on-device AI) is now further integrated with its AI, on top of expanded language support.

These Bixby enhancements are available to select Samsung flagship smartphones with One UI 5.1, like the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The updates will come via a February 2023 software update, which is rolled out gradually. 

Source: Samsung