Samsung is upping its game plan with the launch of its new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S8. On Sunday, the company has announced that they will introduce a smarter digital assistant on the device that can offer "significantly differentiated" services.
In a report from Reuters, the South Korean tech giant said that they will launch the Galaxy S8 with a more intelligent digital assistant - a new feature that is likely similar to Microsoft's Cortana or Amazon's Echo. In late October this year, the company has acquired Viv Labs Inc, the firm that co-created Apple's Siri. Samsung plans to integrate Viv's AI platform to the S8 and further expand its voice-control capabilities to smart home electronics and digital watches.
The move comes after the company faced a major setback with the defective and fire-prone Galaxy Note 7, hitting them with a total of $5B in lost sales. Samsung is eyeing to launch the product in April 2017.
Tech giants are in for a tough competition when it comes to introducing their own versions of smart digital assistants. Currently, Google is gaining positive reviews from Google Assistant after the company integrated the AI platform to Google Home. Amazon is doing the same with the Echo, which also makes a good standing when it comes to smart home devices.
Samsung, for their part, has not yet announced their own AI platform's own line of services. They did announce, however, that it can work with third-party apps.
"Developers can attach and upload services to our agent," said Samsung Executive Vice President Rhee Injong.
"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."
Another report linked to Samsung's new AI feature is a special button specifically made to launch the virtual assistant. According to the Wall Street Journal, the latest internal prototypes of the S8 "include a button on the side edge" that users should press to launch the yet-to-be named intelligent personal assistant (IPA). However, the report claims that this design feature could still change and is not yet final.
