Bixby is a Samsung’s virtual AI developed to take on Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Bixby may be used with non-Samsung electronic products as well
Samsung Electronics has plans of linking Bixby to all of Samsung home appliances to be released until 2020. Bixby is a virtual AI assistant developed by Samsung to take on Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Samsung Electronics approximately ships 500 million units of home appliances every year. Going by the rate, the number of Samsung Bixby-linked electronic products is expected to amount to billions in 2020.
The company is also looking forward to enhance Bixby’s openness in order to use it with non-Samsung electronic products. Samsung was also able to raise an investment fund amounting $45 million for the development of Bixby.
First ‘Bixby Developer Day’ event in South Korea
The company organised the first Bixby Developer Day event at the COEX Intercontinental Hotel in Seoul, South Korea on November 20, 2018. Chung Eui-suk, vice president, Samsung Electronics Mobile Division, specifically mentioned that non-Samsung electronic products will be linked to the SmarThings or equipped with Bixby.
It is to be noted here that Samsung Electronics had acquired VIV Labs, a Silicon Valley located AI platform developer, in November 2016. Cementing its plans of developing AI, the company, one year later, acquired Fluenty, a South Korean startup working in the space of conversational AI services. It is quite likely that Samsung will acquire more such firms in the near future.
Samsung Venture Investment had also raised a fund amounting to 50 billion won ($ 45 million) earlier this month. This fund will be used for investment in firms and start-ups working in AI-development space.
Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco
Samsung, on November 7 and 8, had also organised its developer conference in 2018. The company’s software development kits were opened for developers in order to make Bixby work for more services. Bixby Capsule, which is a combination of functions and services required for Bixby was also opened during the San Francisco Samsung Developer Conference.
Samsung also announced that it is going to add British English, German and French to the list of languages supported by Bixby. Currently Bixby supports Chinese, Korean and American English.