Samsung has officially launched the beta program for its redesigned Bixby assistant. With this move, Samsung is attempting to turn Bixby into a conversational device agent integrated into One UI 8.5. Samsung wants to let you control your device via Bixby with options to manage settings and features using natural language rather than technical commands.
“Since we introduced our first AI phone in 2024, we’ve been committed to making them easier to use so more people can benefit from AI — that’s why we decided to integrate a device agent directly into the experience,” said Won-Joon Choi, Chief Operating Officer, Mobile eXperience (MX) Business at Samsung Electronics. “To support this, we redesigned Bixby to enable more natural interactions and intuitive device control, reducing friction in everyday tasks.”
The Korean phone maker will be rolling out the new Bixby in select markets initially, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Korea, Germany, India, and Poland.
The updated agent is able to understand descriptive requests. For example, users can tell the AI that they want to prevent the screen from timing out, and Bixby will automatically toggle the “Keep Screen on While Viewing” setting. It can also identify the state of your device to help troubleshoot issues, such as suggesting “Accidental Touch Protection” if the user asks why their phone stays on in their pocket. Samsung has also integrated real-time web search directly within the Bixby user interface so that you don’t need external browsers.
Following the beta phase in the initial six markets, Samsung will expand the availability of the new Bixby to more regions and languages. More updates are expected to increase the number of recognizable accents and dialects to improve performance across populations. The dialects understood currently are English (UK), English (US), English (India), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Mandarin Chinese (China), Spanish (Spain), Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Latin America).