But giving up on Bixby is not an option though

Sep 3, 2018 12:20 GMT  ·  By

Samsung is hard at work to make Bixby a more advanced digital assistant, and by the looks of things, the company has no plan to stop anytime soon.

And if getting Bixby right involves teaming up with Google, the South Korean firm is ready to do it, according to a company executive. Technically, by working together with Google on certain technology, Samsung thinks it can improve the capabilities of Bixby in a way that no other digital assistant can achieve anytime soon.

And what’s more, the South Korean firm thinks it has what it takes to convince Google that a joint project is worth the effort: the technical know-how to build any product at any moment.

“Samsung is developing its own voice assistant, Bixby, but we could consider various (forms) of collaboration with Google in the field,” Samsung’s president and CEO of consumer electronics Kim Hyun-suk was quoted as saying on the sidelines of IFA 2018 by The Korea Herald. “For example, we would call up Bixby, but it could lead us to one of Google’s services, like Google Maps.”

Voice control improvements

The Samsung executive goes on to explain that while Google Assistant may be more advanced than Bixby in some regards, a collaboration with Google would generate several benefits for both companies, especially because it would eventually improve voice control.

“Each company has areas they particularly excel in, and collaboration is essential for perfect voice control,” Kim added. “Samsung is a company that sells around 500 million units of devices worldwide every year, and we can use this as our bargaining power to negotiate the level of cooperation with AI leaders like Google.”

Samsung has substantially overhauled Bixby for its second generation, and the digital assistant continues to evolve, though by having it offered side-by-side with Google Assistant can impact its adoption.

While this is unlikely to change anytime soon, working together with Google on improving AI technology would give Samsung a major boost in this field, especially as rivals like Apple are also investing millions of dollars in similar improvements.