What’s happened? Samsung is reportedly preparing to give its voice assistant Bixby a major overhaul with the upcoming Galaxy S26 series.
- According to the X account @chunvn8888, the Korean tech giant will integrate Perplexity AI into Bixby.
- While Bixby will handle all basic user requests, the more complex ones will be passed to Perplexity AI.
- The leak corroborates previous reports about Samsung reducing its reliance on Google’s Gemini.
Why is this important? The improved Bixby, along with Perplexity AI, could debut with the Galaxy S26 series in early 2026.
- For those catching up, Bixby has long been overshadowed by other voice assistants, such as Gemini and, to some extent, Siri.
- The assistant has lagged in generative AI and conversational capability, and hence, upgrading it could revive user interest.
- The move mimics Apple’s current strategy with Siri: handing off simple tasks to the in-house voice assistant and complex queries to ChatGPT.
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Why should I care? If you already own a Galaxy S-series smartphone or you’re planning to buy one, the update could mean a smarter assistant that better handles searches, insights, follow-up questions, and context.
- An improved Bixby could help users with voice-driven workflows, smart-home control, and information-heavy queries that require reasoning or multi-step actions.
- However, this could also mean that Samsung will place Bixby at the center of the conversational smartphone experience, possibly sidelining Gemini.
OK, what’s next? You should expect the official announcement about the improved Bixby (with Perplexity AI integration) at Samsung’s first Galaxy Unpacked event of 2026.
- The upgraded Bixby could also trickle down to eligible devices with the One UI 8.5 update.
- This could mark the start of a more modular voice assistant architecture, wherein device tasks are handled locally, and more complex queries are offloaded to the cloud.
