We now know why Samsung’s having trouble teaching Bixby Voice different languages
Samsung was originally expected to launch Bixby Voice in Chinese and English on board the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ back in August, but it was forced to postpone the feature because it was having trouble teaching the assistant the languages, and now we know why: it doesn’t have the resources, like foreign language experts.
“Bixby’s linguistic capabilities are still unsatisfactory compared to its bigger rivals such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri,” an industry source told The Investor on condition of anonymity on June 27. “We are still working on improving the linguistic skills in order to provide a more advanced AI assistant that meets user needs.”
The South Korean company recently kicked off an opt-in beta test for Bixby Voice in the United States, though it hasn’t been well-received, with many users claiming that it barely understands English and is inaccurate more often than not, which is disappointing, to say the least.
At this rate, it doesn’t seem likely that an English build will debut before the end of 2017. That said, if Samsung enlists the help of a third-party company (cough, cough, Viv Labs, cough) experienced in multi-language systems, it should be able to release it within the next few months.
