I'm making a decision: voice assistants in the form of Siri, Gemini and Bixby will be the big topic in the smartphone sector in 2025. On the hardware side there is little new apart from slim handheld devices anyway, which is why I focus on themI'm only moderately excited.
With the announcement of the Unpacked Event, Samsung is showing a short oneVideo-Teaser, which suggests a redesign of Bixby. No wonder, because “Next Generation Bixby” is no coincidence and has already been presented in China.
Now the new voice assistant may be making its way into the Galaxy S25 series and thus into other countries.
Bixby: “More intuitive and natural”
According to Samsung, Galaxy AI will become even more intuitive and natural. This certainly includes the new Bixby, which the manufacturer is subjecting to an AI treatment.
Similar to the revised Siri and Gemini Live, it stands to reason that Samsung is aiming to make conversations with the in-house voice assistant as natural as possible.
The portal9to5Googlealso highlighted five additional adjustments that Samsung will be making with the new version:
- Videos: Videos can be integrated into the conversation and questions can be asked about them.
- Websites: Bixby translates websites on request and interprets content on the screen.
- User experience: With the new version, the AI is intended to understand “complex user intentions”. This can be a chain of consecutive requests, for example: Bixby creates a series of five images and sends them to any contact.
- context: The new voice assistant understands contextual instructions
- Office applications: Bixby should be able to create Word documents, for example.
How practical are these improvements in everyday life?This is difficult to estimate, at least for now, and depends on the extent to which the promise is kept. An equally important factor is the people who will engage with the new AI assistants and find practical use for them.
Practice will show to what extent such language assistants find their place in my everyday life. Not least because these assistants will most likely also be integrated into other devices.
The new Bixby in smartwatches, XR glasses and TVs
Samsung is known for its. Galaxy AI is a good example of this.
Therefore, I think it is very likely that the improved Bixby will be available in Galaxy Watches in the futureas well as the televisions and will be available to help and advise.
That the manufacturer does not neglect its TVs, at least that's what we're showing at CESannouncedFeature for recognizing actors and objects within a film scene – a kind of Circle to Search, only for the big screen.
The question is not whether or when improved voice assistants will come, but how practical they will actually be in everyday life. Even though I'm skeptical, I'm excited about this potential big trend and look forward to peppering the assistants with questions and tasks.
Already knew: On the competition side, Google is probably also making plans to use Gemini in other devices. The AI should become part of Wear OS and be available for requests on the smartwatch. How large the range of functions will be and when the integration will take place remains to be seen. Gemini will initially be part of Android 16 as a voice assistant on smartphones.
