Samsung AI Assistant ‘Bixby’ Not Ready For Galaxy S8 Global Launch

After a hyped-up unveiling of Samsung’s latest virtual assistant Bixby, the tech giant stated that it will not accompany the Samsung Galaxy S8 features for now. The company’s latest flagship that is expected to launch April 21 worldwide will not incorporate the Samsung’s hallmark feature for its customers, at least not yet.

According to a new report from Axios, Samsung says that Bixby Voice will not ship with the smartphone when it launches in the US on April 21. Instead, the feature will become available “later this spring.” That means that you’ll be unable to control features of select GS8 apps using Bixby Voice right away.

Samsung did confirm that Bixby Vision will work at launch, which means that you’ll be able to use the GS8’s camera to identify objects. Bixby Home and Bixby Reminders will also be available on the Galaxy S8 at launch.

Bixby was unveiled in March and is meant to be a personal assistant for users, similar to other assistants like Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri. The S8 has a dedicated button for the personal assistant, which shows how much Samsung is trying to push it – it is in direct competition with Google Assistant, an Android AI bot.

On the official website, Samsung underlines how you can talk, tap or type to communicate with Bixby. It can translate, detect QR codes, recognize landmarks and be used for shopping too. Samsung said that Bixby also learns your routine and pulls the most important information from different apps to display on the screen, such as Uber rides, upcoming events or daily news.

If Samsung wants its customers to use that feature to the full extent, it will need to roll out the Bixby voice assistant update as soon as users get their hands on the new device. Hopefully, the Samsung Galaxy S8 features update for the Bixby app will be out soon.

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