Bixby (software)


Bixby is a virtual assistant developed by Samsung Electronics that runs on various Samsung-branded appliances, primarily mobile devices but also some refrigerators 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.
Samsung first launched Bixby in 2017. Along with Bixby voice assistant, its other main component currently is Bixby Vision, a contextual and visual search augmented reality camera app. Formerly, the Bixby suite consisted of a number of other tools, but these have since been renamed, such as Bixby Routines.

History

On 20 March 2017, Samsung announced the voice-powered digital assistant named "Bixby" as a replacement of the S Voice assistant. It was introduced alongside the Galaxy S8 and S8+ and the Galaxy Tab A during the Galaxy Unpacked 2017 event. Although released for these devices, it could also be sideloaded on older Galaxy devices running Android Nougat. 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. Remapping remained possible through third-party apps.
Bixby was launched in Korean on 1 May 2017. Bixby Voice was intended to be made available in the US later that spring. However, Samsung postponed the release, as Bixby had issues understanding English. The English version was finally rolled out in July 2017, followed by a Chinese language version later that year.
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. Third parties were allowed to develop applications for Bixby using the Samsung Developer Kit.
In August 2018, Samsung announced the Bixby-integrated Galaxy Home smart speaker.
In 2019, UX developers at Samsung stated that they intended to use AR Emoji avatars as a personified Bixby assistant. At SDC19, Samsung displayed the Galaxy Home Mini speaker, which also supported Bixby.
Bixby 3.0 was released with One UI 3 at the start of 2021. With version 3.0, Home and Reminders features were separated from Bixby. In June 2021, screenshots surfaced for what some thought as a replacement for Bixby. The three-dimensional virtual assistant, Sam, was popular on social media, though it was not intended as a replacement for Bixby. Bixby launched for Microsoft Windows in October 2021, with distribution through the Microsoft Store. This version of Bixby was optimized for Samsung's Galaxy Book computers.
Samsung launched an AI Bixby custom voice creator in 2023, allowing users to record their own voice commands.
Most recently, in July 2024, Samsung confirmed that it plans to launch an upgraded version of Bixby later that year. This new Bixby would be powered by Samsung's proprietary large language model technology, promising a significant boost to Bixby's capabilities with the help of generative AI.
In January 2025, with the announcement of Galaxy S25 and the One UI 7 update, Bixby was no longer the default voice assistant, having been replaced by Google Gemini. Despite this, Bixby still continued to be developed and expanded by Samsung and was revamped at the same time with new AI capabilities. Samsung brought the "smarter" Bixby to Samsung televisions, allowing users to speak to their TV sets and control their homes with it.
A visual refresh was planned for One UI 8.5.

Functionality

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

Bixby Vision">Galaxy AI#Bixby Vision">Bixby Vision

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

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 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.
It was renamed Samsung Daily with the release of One UI 2.1 in 2020,
then replaced by Samsung Free in One UI 3.0.
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.
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.
Bixby Text Call, introduced in One UI 5.0 in select regions, enabled users to handle incoming calls via speech-to-text conversion and vice versa.
It is now named simply Text Call and can be found in the Phone app settings.
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.

Regions and languages

As of April 2018, Bixby is available in over 195 countries, but only in Korean, English, and Chinese. 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, and on 20 February 2019 Samsung announced the addition of further languages: English, German, Italian and Spanish. On 22 February 2020, Samsung announced the addition of Portuguese, for Galaxy S10 & Note10, in Beta, and later for other models.

Compatible devices

Flagship series

;Galaxy A
  • Galaxy A6/A6+
  • Galaxy A7
  • Galaxy A7
  • Galaxy A8
  • Galaxy A8s
  • Galaxy A9 /A9s/A9 Star Pro
  • Galaxy A9 Pro
  • Galaxy A20
  • Galaxy A21s
  • Galaxy A30s
  • Galaxy A40
  • Galaxy A41
  • Galaxy A50
  • Galaxy A50s
  • Galaxy A51
  • Galaxy A52
  • Galaxy A52s
  • Galaxy A53 5G
  • Galaxy A70
  • Galaxy A70s
  • Galaxy A71
  • Galaxy A72
  • Galaxy A73 5G
  • Galaxy A80
  • Galaxy A34 5G
  • Galaxy A54 5G
  • Galaxy A35 5G
  • Galaxy A55 5G
  • Galaxy A36 5G
  • Galaxy A56 5G
;Galaxy M
  • Galaxy M35 5G
  • Galaxy M36 5G
;Galaxy F
  • Galaxy F62
;Galaxy Tab A
  • Galaxy Tab A 10.1
  • Galaxy Tab A 8.0
  • Galaxy Tab A 10.5
;Galaxy J
  • Galaxy J4
  • Galaxy J7+
  • Galaxy J6
  • Galaxy J6+
;Galaxy C
  • Galaxy C8
Galaxy XCover
  • Galaxy XCover Pro

    Laptops

  • Galaxy Book series: Models released from May 2021 onwards

    External Links