Adroit Market Research - Industry Insights

Contemporary smart voice assistants are useful, but still have a limited role in people’s day-to-day life. People use them to set reminders and timers, answer trivial questions, etc. But Samsung’s Bixby sees a world where digital assistant have a bigger or an intelligent role and right from phone, fridge to a sprinkler everything has its own intelligence to have seamless interaction with technology. Samsung continues its long legacy of being the global smartphone leader and is on the cusp of the next major tectonic shift. Therefore, the company has decided to bring meaningful innovation and drive digital transformation by developing its smart and intelligent assistant, Bixby.

Contemporary smart voice assistants are useful, but still have a limited role in people’s day-to-day life. People use them to set reminders and timers, answer trivial questions, etc. But Samsung’s Bixby sees a world where digital assistant have a bigger or an intelligent role and right from phone, fridge to a sprinkler everything has its own intelligence to have seamless interaction with technology. Samsung continues its long legacy of being the global smartphone leader and is on the cusp of the next major tectonic shift. Therefore, the company has decided to bring meaningful innovation and drive digital transformation by developing its smart and intelligent assistant, Bixby.      

Samsung Bixby had its debut with galaxy S8 and S8+ and the Note 8, and now they are ready to take it to the next level by introducing Bixby 2.0 which is a bold reinvention of the platform. The reinvention aims at transforming basic digital assistants into an intelligence tool. Like other big names Alexa and Google Assistant in smart speakers, Samsung is also working upon Galaxy Home Bixby speaker.    

Problem Statement:

The artificially intelligent assistant, Samsung Bixby was found on the Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S9. It is quite different from Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri. Anticipating customer’s requirement, Samsung has served with contextualized reminders. Bixby can edit photos, compose emails and send messages on command. Bixby has been focusing on, whatever you can do on your phone, you should be able to achieve it via Bixby voice. It can monitor smart home appliances and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including TVs, smart fridges and dozens of other Samsung devices.            

What is Samsung Bixby?

Bixby is Samsung's attempt to take on the likes of Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, and Alexa. It is based upon AI, designed to have easy device interaction and avoid complexity of growing number of fully featured devices. Samsung's Android phones has their own voice assistant called Bixby, along with Google Assistant. The debut of technology started with limited devices but it is designed to work seamlessly across various range of Samsung products.

Diving in details, Samsung declared the voice-powered digital assistant named “Bixby” on 20 March, 2017. Bixby was launched alongside the Samsung Galaxy Tab A as well as Samsung galaxy S8 and S8+. Soon, it'll also be available on the Galaxy S10 series, the Galaxy Fold and other devices. Bixby is offered with a facility to be sideloaded on older Galaxy devices too by running Android Nougat. It is considered as a key reboot for S Voice, Samsung’s voice assistant app launched in 2012 with the Galaxy S III. Then in 2017, the company declared Bixby would be coming to its line of Family Hub 2.0 refrigerators, which made it first non-mobile product which has virtual assistant.  

Samsung’s annual developer conference took place in San Francisco where it announced Bixby 2.0. The new version was introduced across the company’s line of connected products such as refrigerators, TVs and smartphones. Moreover, all the third parties will be permitted to create or build applications for Bixby with help of Samsung Developer Kit. Bixby’s second-generation edition (Bixby 2.0) of Samsung’s voice-controlled personal assistant, it brings new features like better conversational skills, including speedier response times, and predicting user’s needs in order to be more useful. Apart from that, it has improved natural language capabilities, which bring more natural commands and complex processing.  

How Bixby works

Samsung has offered detailed-description about three pillars which help drive Bixby:

Bixby is a complete solution: Instead of going for an app that carry out single task, Bixby is designed in such a way that a user can execute wide range of interactions. The technology is capable of achieving every task in similar manner an app do via touch.

Bixby is contextually aware: This feature let Bixby recognize or identify the state that app is in and accordingly take the right actions on the basis of user’s request, also allowing them mix voice or touch.

Bixby understands natural language: This feature free the user to give incomplete information and interpret easily and take action. It doesn’t mandates the user to use particular or already set phrases. Natural language recognition has played important role in rise of Alexa, however, now it has become a key element of modern AI. 

The service works in similar manner like other AI solutions like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. It listens to users voice, interprets the information and response the required action. The contextual awareness denote taking immediate actions without laborious detailing of what to do with what – instead it has self-intelligence that recognize where a user is and subsequently takes next logical step.

Bixby’s Applications

Bixby Home: Bixby Home is part of your home screen, which lies left of phone’s homepage. In the UK, it is combined with Upday news service or Flipboard which pulls in cards from supported apps. This has contains numerous cards, it’s more like personal feed or scrolling vertical list of information that Bixby can interact with, be it fitness activity, weather and buttons for controlling IoT gadgets. 

Bixby Reminders: It create a reminder for user –with specific tasks in checklist or text format. It also reminds a user, calls and text messages which they want to revert later.

Limitations

But Bixby voice commands work limited number of third-party apps. Users need to check apps with Voice in Bixby if the app fits in compatible apps. Other key requirement to use it, is Samsung Account and data network. These voice command recognize Korean, English (US) and Chinese (Mandarin). Not all dialects, accents and expressions are recognized. It lacks instant access while a user is in between other task like Ultra Power Saving Mode, Kids Mode, Emergency Mode, video and voice recording, call, DeX, DeX Station and Car Mode.