Bixby technology debuted in 2017 (Getty Images)
It is the voice that animates the Korean group's artificial intelligence. Launched in 2017, it is now also arriving in our language. But beating the competition won't be easy
ShareIt took a long time to wait, but in the end Bixby is speaking Italian with more commitment. Samsung's digital assistant first landed on a smartphone in 2017, with the Galaxy S8. It took almost two years to learn our language and, last December, the Italian version landed on the Note 9. These days, thanks to the latest update, it is arriving on the Galaxy S9, the smartphone launched a year ago.
How Bixby works
Bixby works like other digital assistants. In fact, it competes with Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa. It is therefore possible to give instructions to make calls, manage apps, receive news. Italian users can choose between a male (Andrea) and a female (Angela) voice. Change the tone, not the functions. In a sector that is starting to get crowded, Samsung has the advantage of offering a complete package made up of hardware (smartphones but not only) and software (artificial intelligence). Bixby will therefore integrate with increasing frequency not only on phones (starting with the upcoming Galaxy S10) but - potentially - on all connected devices of the Korean house: from televisions to household appliances. The trend, as Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant in particular demonstrate, is this: a digital assistant that inhabits multiple devices and not just the smartphone or smart speaker. Samsung can count on an already very large "population".
The challenge of smart speakers
The possible limitation of Bixby is probably the delay with which it moved. Launched after the competitors, he did not immediately gallop. Amazon could count on being the first; Apple on its own closed ecosystem; Google on the opportunities of Android (the operating system also adopted by Samsung). For now, Bixby has not even benefited from the push of the group's smart speaker, the Galaxy Home: the device had already been talked about in 2017; was unveiled during the Samsung Unpacked event on August 9, 2018, but is not yet available on the market. Delays may be due to course correction. The expected price for the Galaxy Home was quite high (closer to that of Apple's Home Pod than to those of Echo and Google Home), while last December the indiscretion of a low-cost Samsung smart speaker popped up. Curious that the rumor of a new version preceded the launch of the first.
How many languages does Bixby speak
The other challenge facing Bixby is closely related to the most recent novelty: a digital assistant must be multilingual. Becoming one is not easy, because a mere translation is not enough. A digital assistant must understand natural language, made up not only of single words but of entire sentences that are not learned by swallowing a dictionary. The languages spoken by Bixby are currently eight: British English, American English, Chinese, Korean, Italian, Spanish, German, French. Alexa also holds onto these numbers (albeit from a stronger market position). Siri and Google Assistant, on the other hand, already speak about twenty languages each.