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Bixby (software)

Intelligent personal assistant by Samsung From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bixby (software)
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Bixby (/ˈbɪksbi/ ⓘ) is a virtual assistant developed by Samsung Electronics[7] that runs on various Samsung-branded appliances, primarily mobile devices but also some refrigerators[8] televisions and PCs. It uses voice commands and a natural-language user interface to answer questions and perform tasks, while adapting to the users' preferences and behavior.[9][10]

Quick facts Developer, Initial release ...

Samsung first launched Bixby in 2017.[11] Along with Bixby voice assistant, its other main component currently is Bixby Vision, a contextual and visual search augmented reality[12] camera app.[13] Formerly, the Bixby suite consisted of a number of other tools but these have since been renamed, such as Bixby Routines (now Modes and Routines).[14]

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History

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Bixby Home, the former information screen at launch of Bixby 1.0

On 20 March 2017, Samsung announced the voice-powered digital assistant named "Bixby" as a replacement of the S Voice assistant.[11][9][15][16] It was introduced alongside the Galaxy S8 and S8+ and the Galaxy Tab A (2017) during the Galaxy Unpacked 2017 event;[17][18][19] although released for these devices, it could also be sideloaded on older Galaxy devices running Android Nougat.[20] A while before the phone's release, the Bixby Button was reprogrammable and could be set to open other applications or assistants, such as Google Assistant. However, near the phone's release, this ability was removed with a firmware update, but can be remapped using third-party apps.[21]

Bixby in Korean was launched on 1 May 2017 (KST).[22] Bixby Voice was intended to be made available in the US later that spring,[23] however, the release of the English version was postponed as Samsung had problems getting Bixby to fully understand the language.[24] The English version was finally rolled out in July 2017[25] and later that year followed by a Chinese language version.[26]

In October 2017, Samsung announced the release of Bixby 2.0 during its annual developer conference in San Francisco. The new version was rolled out across the company's line of connected products, including smartphones, TVs, and refrigerators. Also, third parties are allowed to develop applications for Bixby using the Samsung Developer Kit.[27] Bixby 3.0 was released with One UI 3 at the start of 2021.[28] With version 3.0, Home and Reminders features were separated from Bixby.

In 2019, UX developers at Samsung said their intention to use the AR Emoji avatar as a personified Bixby assistant.[29]

In June 2021, screenshots surfaced for what some thought as a replacement for Bixby.[30] The three-dimensional virtual assistant, Sam, was popular on social media though it was not intended as a replacement for Bixby.[31][32]

Bixby launched for Microsoft Windows in October 2021 with distribution through the Microsoft Store. This version of Bixby is optimized for Samsung's Galaxy Book computers and may not function on non-Samsung systems.[33][34]

Samsung launched an AI Bixby custom voice creator in 2023 allowing users to record their own voice commands.[35][36]

Most recently, in July 2024, Samsung confirmed that it plans to launch an upgraded version of Bixby later this year. This new Bixby would be powered by Samsung's proprietary large language model (LLM) technology, promising a significant boost to Bixby's capabilities with the help of generative AI.[37][38]

In January 2025 with the announcement of Galaxy S25 and the One UI 7 update, Bixby is no longer the default voice assistant now replaced in role by Google Gemini. Despite this, Bixby still continues to be developed and expanded by Samsung, and was revamped at the same time with new AI capabilites.[39] Also, Samsung brought the "smarter" Bixby to Samsung televisions, allowing users to speak to their TV sets and also control their homes using it.[40]

A visual refresh planned for One UI 8.5.[41][41]

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Functionality

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Bixby running in Windows 11 responding to a query

Bixby is a voice assistant developed by Samsung that provides device control, information retrieval, and task automation using voice input and artificial intelligence. It can answer contextual queries, adjust system settings, perform searches, and manage reminders or schedules. The service also personalizes responses by recognizing individual user voices.[42][43]

Bixby itself was also formerly called Bixby Voice to differentiate from other Bixby tools in the suite.

Bixby Vision

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Bixby Vision icon since 2025

Bixby Vision is a visual recognition feature that analyzes images captured through the device camera and provides context-specific information or actions. It combines on-device processing with cloud-based AI resources to identify objects, detect text, and interpret scenes within supported applications.[44]

It comes pre-installed on Samsung Galaxy phones. It is considered to be the imaging component of Bixby.[45]

Translate

Detects foreign text in the camera view and provides real-time translation by overlaying translated text on the preview.

Text

Uses optical character recognition(OCR) to extract printed or handwritten text for copying, searching, or sharing.

Discover

Identifies consumer products, fashion items, or furniture and retrieves visually similar items or related online information.

Wine

Recognizes wine labels and provides information such as variety, region of origin, average price, and reviews.

Scene Describer

Generates written and spoken descriptions of captured scenes, supporting accessibility for users with visual impairments.

Object Identifier

Identifies plants, animals, food items, or landmarks and displays corresponding names or classification details.

Text Reader

Converts detected text into spoken audio using text-to-speech functionality.

Color Detector

Identifies and names colors within the frame, displaying or reading the recognized color aloud.

Former Bixby tools

Bixby Home was a vertically scrolling home screen displaying cards of information such as weather, fitness activity, and smart home controls.[46] It was renamed Samsung Daily with the release of One UI 2.1 in 2020,[47] then replaced by Samsung Free in One UI 3.0.[48] Samsung Free was eventually discontinued in some markets. Its successor, Samsung News, now functions as a news aggregation service with optional home-screen integration similar to Bixby Home.[49]

Bixby Routines was an automation feature that allowed users to create custom rules based on triggers such as time, location, or device conditions. Beginning with One UI 5.0, it was renamed Modes and Routines.[50]

Bixby Text Call, introduced in One UI 5.0 (2022) in select regions, enabled users to handle incoming calls via speech-to-text conversion and vice versa.[51] It is now named simply Text Call and can be found in the Phone app settings.[52]

Bixby Touch allowed users to trigger context-aware actions by touching on-screen content. It analyzed images, text, and other visual elements displayed on the device and provided related options such as translation, image search, product lookup, or other content-based information. Several of its capabilities overlapped with, or were later superseded by, features offered through Bixby Vision.

Other legacy components including Bixby Touch, Bixby Global Action, Bixby Dictation, and Bixby Wakeup, formed part of the early Bixby suite and have since been phased out, though exact discontinuation details vary by region.[53]

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Regions and languages

As of April 2018, Bixby is available in over 195 countries, but only in Korean, English (American), and Chinese (Mandarin).[54] The limitation is that the models not intended for the Japanese market, like S10e, are not allowed to login to Bixby services from Japan; therefore Bixby becomes blocked. The choice of languages has since expanded: Samsung has deployed Bixby's voice command function in French,[55][56] and on 20 February 2019 Samsung announced the addition of further languages: English (British), German, Italian and Spanish (Spain).[57] On 22 February 2020, Samsung announced the addition of Portuguese (Brazil), for Galaxy S10 & Note10, in Beta, and later for other models.[58]

Compatible devices

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Flagship series

Other series

Galaxy A
Galaxy M
Galaxy F
Galaxy Tab A
Galaxy J
  • Galaxy J4 (2018) (Bixby Home)[61]
  • Galaxy J7+ (2017)[62]
  • Galaxy J6 (2018) (Bixby Vision, Bixby Home and Bixby Reminders)
  • Galaxy J6+ (2018)
Galaxy C
  • Galaxy C8 (Bixby Home, Reminder and Bixby Vision only)

Galaxy XCover

  • Galaxy XCover Pro

Laptops

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See also

Notes

  1. [a]
    Bixby Home, Reminder and Vision only available on Android Oreo; S Voice used instead

References

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