Bixby is a virtual digital assistant developed by Samsung for Android mobile devices to compete with Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, and even the built-in Google Assistant (as well as to a lesser degree, Amazon’s Alexa).
Bixby made its debut with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone in April 2017. In addition to basic assistant functions like placing calls, sending messages, setting reminders, and adding events to the device’s calendar app, Bixby will control apps on the device, provide contextual information to users based on their location, assist users in shopping and more.
Bixby’s Intelligent Assistant Capabilities
Bixby uses natural language interpretation to provide help to users and will ask questions when needed to provide additional information. Bixby will also process pictures taken with the smartphone or tablet s camera and provide additional contextual information like shopping recommendations based on the image.
While Bixby’s current capabilities are extensive, Samsung is using its Viv Labs artificial intelligence division to develop future AI capabilities for Bixby to make the digital assistant even more powerful.
