- Samsung has shown off a next-gen version of Bixby
- For the time being it's exclusive to China
- The upgrade makes Bixby more like Gemini or ChatGPT
Samsung is upgrading Bixby to better compete in the age of ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Apple Intelligence: the company just unveiled a next-gen Bixby app, powered by LLM (large language model) AI.
This news comes from SamMobile, reporting on the launch of the Samsung W25 and Samsung W25 Flip foldables. The new phones are similar to the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the Galaxy Z Flip 6, though they're exclusive to China.
This new and improved Bixby is also exclusive to these devices and to China, at least for now. It's not clear how long it's going to take for the upgrade to reach the best Samsung phones in the rest of the world, though Samsung will surely want to get its top AI tech out to as many people as it can, as quickly as possible.
Samsung has of course gone all in on AI in the last year or so – though its Galaxy AI features reference Google Gemini more than Bixby – and we did hear back in July that the Samsung AI assistant was in line for a ChatGPT-style boost.
What next-gen Bixby can do
According to Samsung, the next-gen Bixby can understand "complex user instructions" that combine multiple commands in a single sentence, and will be able to extract information from what's on screen (like maps or photos).
We've also got a more modern interface to look forward to, when this new Bixby turns up outside of China, giving Bixby a better chance of seriously competing against all the other AI assistants its up against.
In one of the demos Samsung showed off, you can ask next-gen Bixby about what you should wear based on the current weather. It's also capable of taking you step by step through how to do something on your phone (like adding a watermark to an image), and will remember the context of what you've already talked about.
Text and voice input are both supported, and Bixby can be summoned from any screen and from any app on a phone. Expect to see it join the other Galaxy AI features across more regions soon – possibly when One UI 7 rolls out at the start of next year.
