In March this year, Samsung announced its much awaited AI (Artificial Intelligence) based voice assistant called Bixby which is expected to compete Apple’s Siri, Google Voice Assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon’s Alexa among others. However, Bixby has had challenges in learning languages. It will be recalled that Samsung was supposed to launch Bixby Voice in Chinese and English on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ in April of this year. This was postponed because of Bixby’s inability to learn the languages properly. At the time, the reasons for Bixby’s slow language learning was vague but fresh information suggests that Samsung may be lacking the right resources, like foreign language experts to teach Bixby.
On June 27, an industry source told The Investor on condition of anonymity that
“Bixby’s linguistic capabilities are still unsatisfactory compared to its bigger rivals such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. We are still working on improving the linguistic skills in order to provide a more advanced AI assistant that meets user needs.”
Recently, Samsung commenced an opt-in beta test for Bixby Voice in the US, however, reports suggest that it barely understands English and in most cases, it is largely inaccurate which is disappointing. With the current development rate, it appears that Bixby will not be fully ready to penetrate the market by the end of this year. Nevertheless, Samsung has the option of contacting any professional company with specialization in multi-language systems which could facilitate the process.
