The second generation of Samsung’s AI assistant Bixby will be integrated into various smart home products that the company sell. Samsung fridges, freezers and also TVs will soon get a lot smarter and talkative due to Bixby 2.0 support.
Samsung revealed Bixby 2.0 at a developer conference in San Francisco this week. The Galaxy 8 phone series including Galaxy Note 8 already incorporates Bixby.
The second generation Bixby is an improved version with extended functionality. It’s capable of adjusting better and more intelligently to the user’s behaviour. Furthermore, it’s getting a lot better at recognising and interpreting voices.
Bixby consists of three main skills or versions: voice, home, and vision. The voice version is currently the main one. Samsung, however, plans to expand the reach and popularity of the other two versions with the roll-out of Bixby 2.0.Roll-out
Samsung plans to release a beta version of the SDK (Software Development Kit) in the near future. The company needs third-party developers to integrate various services into Bixby.
Stiff competition from other vendors
Samsung does face stiff competition with other AI assistant vendors such as Amazon (Alexa), Microsoft (Cortana) and Google (Google Assistant). Amazon Alexa is probably the toughest competitor for fridges and freezers and has the advantage of being a leading assistant for many brands in the smart home space. Samsung obviously hopes and plans to offer Bixby to other whiteware manufacturers. The question though is if manufacturers like Panasonic, Haier, and Fisher & Paykel are keen to adopt an assistant from a competitor? How much data does the assistant actually collect about the products? These are questions competing brands and manufacturers need to ask themselves.
