I remember when Bixby was announced, and outside of why YouTube’s automatic subtitles called it “Dick Speed”, my major question was how it was going to compete with Google Assistant. Ultimately, it didn’t, and Bixby was consigned to a footnote in Samsung’s mobile history.
Or so we thought. Evidence has been mounting that Samsung is bringing the ill-fated Bixby back from the dead, and is using the Perplexity AI assistant to do so. Now, a significant leak has shown exactly how we can expect Bixby and Perplexity to work together.
Bixby will outsource the hard thinking
We’ve known Samsung was looking to incorporate Perplexity for some time now, but we weren’t quite sure how. But, a massive leak of screenshots from GalaxyTechie on X has shown us exactly what we can expect (via SamMobile).
One of Bixby’s strengths was its ability to control its own device intimately, and you could ask the digital assistant to change your screen brightness, volume, and even turning off your WiFi. The revived Bixby will keep these abilities, but will shun tackling anything more complex than that.
This is where Perplexity comes in. For any questions that might require deeper research or abilities will be passed over to Perplexity, which will tackle them much in the same way you’d expect ChatGPT or Google Gemini to do. Interestingly, it seems you’ll be able to customize how Perplexity replies to you, as screenshots show the ability to change its answers into different formats, like Interview, Storyteller, Tour Guide, and more.
It also has a Gemini Live-like Bixby Live, which would presumably be able to converse with the user in real time, and might be able to interact with other apps to boot. Android Authority even found evidence that a “hey Plex” hotword could be introduced — effectively making the new Bixby much like Google Gemini in more ways than it differs.
As a final note, it appears that Bixby in China will have even more backing it up, as it seems it will be tied into DeepSeek as well.
It’s a big change for Bixby, which honestly struggled to get out of the gates the first time around. Frankly, a big part of the reason Bixby originally failed was down to Samsung’s insistence on the ” Bixby key“, an additional button that did nothing but summon Bixby. Most users found this annoying, and it was mere seconds before third-parties found ways to repurpose it or turn it off.
Thankfully, we’re mostly past the era of AI buttons ( I hope), and without it, the new and upgraded Bixby may actually have a fighting chance.
