Samsung’s Bixby artificial intelligence (AI) assistant won’t understand British English at launch, the Seoul-based company confirmed earlier today, shortly after announcing the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus at its Unpacked event in New York City. The upcoming pair of premium Android flagships will be hitting the Old Continent on April 28, at which point it will only be able to communicate with users in Korean and American English. There’s still no word on when the update with support for British English might arrive as Samsung only said it will expand on Bixby’s language support in some unspecified future and promised that more details on the matter will follow shortly.
While the support for British English is likely only months away, the fact that consumers in the United Kingdom won’t be able to use the assistant’s voice recognition at launch possibly won’t sit well with some people, especially in light of the fact that Samsung went out of its way to promote the companion’s ability to hold a meaningful conversation. Regardless, Bixby will support ten Samsung-made apps at launch, all of which will come pre-installed on the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus. The rest of the assistant’s features like its ability to perform visual searches will be available in Europe at launch, Samsung confirmed. The South Korean phone maker is expected to reveal more details regarding Bixby’s language support later this year.
Even though Bixby is advertised as one of the main selling points of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus, Samsung’s voice-enabled companion wasn’t exclusively designed to complement the company’s latest pair of Android flagships. Instead, the Seoul-based tech giant is looking to use Bixby to develop an AI ecosystem encompassing a number of product categories, from smartphones and tablets to Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Samsung’s 2016 financial report previously revealed that the South Korean conglomerate intends to differentiate its future products from their competitors with both hardware and software, and the latter clearly entails a powerful AI assistant like Bixby. Time will tell whether Samsung manages to fulfill its AI-related ambitions, but more details on its efforts to do so will likely follow soon.