South Korean tech titan, Samsung Electronics announced on Nov. 6, Sunday, its plans to incorporate an artificial intelligence (AI) assistance service in its next flagship smartphone series, Galaxy S8. Aside from the Galaxy S8, the company will include the virtual assistance in some of its other products like wearable devices and home appliances.
Currently, Samsung is working hard to overcome the mess created following the launch of its Galaxy S7 series in March this year. The company is pinning its hopes on the forthcoming Galaxy S8, which is expected to be launched in 2017, to help revitalize its smartphone momentum following the recall of 4.3 million fire-prone Galaxy Note 7s, Reuters reported.
It is estimated that the recall of the faulty Galaxy S7 series handsets will bring down the tech titan's profit by around $5.4 billion over the next three quarters, starting from the first quarter of 2017. According to investors as well as analysts, Samsung should ensure that the Galaxy S8 is a strong device so that Samsung is able to win the confidence of it customers and perk up earnings momentum.
However, the South Korean tech firm is yet to comment on precise kind of services it would offer the customers through the AI assistant, which will be incorporated into the Galaxy S8. All that the company has said so far is that the AI assistant would let customers to utilize third-party service without any glitch.
Developers will be able to attach as well as upload services "to our agent," the news agency quoted Rhee In-jong, Samsung executive vice-president, saying about its AI assistant during a recent briefing. In-jong further stated, "Even if Samsung doesn't do anything on its own, the more services that get attached the smarter this agent will get, learn more new services and provide them to end-users with ease."
With the acquisition of the Silicon Valley startup, Viv Labs Inc., in October this year, Samsung joined the technological bandwagon to develop digital assistant service. Incidentally, Viv Labs was established by entrepreneurs who had earlier sold Siri to Apple, CNBC reported. Although Samsung phones launched in the past and even its current flagship handsets offer a voice assistant service dubbed as "S Voice," which the company developed internally, the feature has not helped the Korean tech firm to gain much traction.
Contrary to the company's present digital assistance, the one the company is developing now aims to be an "open AI platform," the publication reported quoting executives at Samsung and Viv Labs. In other words, it will allow third-party developers to offer their respective services via the upcoming Samsung AI platform.
Watch below Samsung acquires next-gen AI platform from Viv Labs Inc: