If you've got a Samsung TV, and enjoy using a certain voice assistant to navigate the operating system, then we have some bad news for you. Samsung has announced that it will remove Google Assistant on all of its TVs from 2020 onwards, leaving Bixby and Alexa to pick up the slack.
This has been an inevitability for some time, as Google Assistant was not available on Samsung's 2023 models, including the S95C and QN95C. Google Assistant's brief stint on Samsung TVs began in 2020, launching on all of Samsung's 4K and 8K TVs, and only lasted two years, ending in 2022.
So why is Samsung removing this feature from its TVs? It states that a "change in Google's policy" is to blame while setting a date of the 1st of March as the final day you'll be able to access the voice assistant. It's unclear whether you'll still be able to use your Samsung TV with an external Google Assistant-enabled speaker (such as a Nest Audio), but we're not optimistic.
You'll still have the option to pick between Samsung's own voice assistant Bixby, or Amazon's well-established Alexa AI system. Considering Bixby hasn't gained traction quite as well as Samsung had hoped, we recommend opting for the Amazon alternative. And if you still want to use Google Assistant on your Samsung TV then not all hope is lost; you'll just have to invest in a Google Chromecast with Google TV streaming stick.
MORE:
Check out our list of the best Samsung TVs
As well as the best TVs overall
And our picks for the best Android TVs
