Details on Bixby’s AI update: Here’s how your Galaxy will get better (also, expect potato recipes)

Everyone and everything is on the AI hype train these days – especially Samsung. The giant dubbed their Galaxy S24 line an “AI phone” with the Galaxy AI pack back in January, after all.

Now, Samsung will inject Bixby with AI – we told you so just a couple of days ago. No details about the update were available, but the information came from a Samsung exec who said that Bixby will become smarter in the future thanks to generative AI and LLM (large language model) technology.

Bixby, Samsung’s answer to Google Assistant, Alexa and Apple’s Siri, was launched in 2017.

SamMobile reports that since its launch, Bixby has been lagging behind the aforementioned rival voice assistants. And with Apple’s plans to bring ChatGPT-like functionality to Siri with iOS 18 later this year, Samsung simply can’t afford to not improve its Bixby.

Per the new information, Bixby will be able to understand complex commands once it’s been AI-injected.

During the launch of the AI-powered BESPOKE home appliances lineup, Samsung again dragged Bixby into the conversation. Apart from being able to comprehend complex sentences and voice commands, Samsung also revealed that Bixby would engage in natural conversations with users and continue previous conversations.

On a side note: I wonder how long until someone decides to prompt-prime (guiding the AI model towards a more accurate or appropriate response by setting the right context upfront) Bixby, turn it into a psychoanalyst and charge by the hour.

Back to the report: for example, users can ask Bixby to “turn on the AC to Wind Free mode, and let me know how the weather is”. The AI-powered voice assistant will then turn on the AC, change its mode to Wind Free mode, and then fetch the current weather conditions for the user’s location.

Another use case: if the user asks Bixby to “turn off the air purifier,” and then, after some time, says “Oh, and the TV, too,” Bixby will understand that the user wants the TV to be turned off as well.

Bixby is said to be able to understand more context about a user’s problems and deliver solutions. For example, if a user says “The living room feels humid,” Bixby will make necessary changes to the humidifier. If the user asks Bixby: “What should I do with all the potatoes I bought yesterday?”, Bixby will understand the context and come up with recipe options in which potatoes can be used.

So far, there isn’t a fixed date for Bixby’s AI update. Maybe this will happen at the summer Galaxy Unpacked event? Stay tuned!