Although Samsung is promoting Google’s Gemini AI voice assistant on its latest smartphones, the company has revived Bixby, its in-house voice assistant, with comprehensive web search capabilities powered by Perplexity. The new version will be available with the upcoming One UI 8.5 software update.
The new, redesigned Bixby can now understand natural conversational speech. In other words, you can talk to the voice assistant as if you were speaking to a person, without taking unnatural pauses or sounding like a robot (via a 9To5Google report).
A smarter Bixby that understands you and your phone
“We’ve redesigned Bixby to enable more natural interactions and more intuitive device control,” Samsung wrote in the now-deleted Newsroom post announcing the new Bixby AI assistant. In addition to natural language understanding, the voice assistant can now also access the device’s settings.
For example, users should be able to invoke the assistant and request that the screen not expire while they are still viewing it. In response, Bixby should redirect you to the “Keep screen on while viewing” option in the Settings menu.
If Bixby can actually access the device’s settings, it could mean a significant quality of life improvement for users. Buyers no longer have to wade through lengthy support pages or YouTube videos to find specific features or options deep in the Settings app.
Thanks to the Perplexity integration, Bixby should also be able to handle multi-step tasks that include web surfing. So commands like “Find me the best restaurant to eat burgers near me” or “Find the best cafes to drink coffee near my house” should produce meaningful results and not just a simple internet search.
Since the new Bixby is rumored to launch with One UI 8.5, it should launch alongside the Galaxy S26 series, which is expected to go on sale at the end of February and go on sale in the first half of March. Currently, AI-powered Bixby should be available as part of the fourth One UI 8.5 beta update (on eligible devices).
However, the deletion of the official newsroom post is somewhat puzzling. Samsung may have published the post by mistake or earlier than planned, but for now the company appears to have backed down on its Bixby relaunch. Still, I expect the next One UI 8.5 beta update to come with AI-powered Bixby.
