Bixby to do more than Siri or Google Assistant, first it needs to master the phone

Samsung’s plan to conquer Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant moves talking AIs in an ambitious new direction. Too bad Bixby under-delivers in its debut in the Galaxy S8, writes Geoffrey A. Fowler.

A new talking sidekick arrived Wednesday on millions of Samsung Galaxy S8 phones. To understand what makes chatting with Bixby different from Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant, Samsung would like us to picture Iron Man.

Yes, the superhero. Injong Rhee, Samsung’s head of mobile software R&D, told me the electronics giant’s late-to-the-game voice assistant was inspired by Tony Stark. In the movies, he just barks commands and his systems leap into action. Billionaire inventors don’t have to tap through menus to fire their unibeam chest projectors.

With Bixby, nor will you, when taking a selfie, changing the TV channel or, eventually, setting the dishwasher to eco-mode. Samsung wants to make all kinds of devices conversational. Siri can tell you what movie won Best Picture in 1991, but won’t turn on your iPhone’s flashlight.

Bixby is much more helpful than Siri on function-based commands. It can “take a selfie,” giving you a countdown before it shoots. Google’s Assistant, built into the Pixel and other Android phones, is a bit more capable than Siri, but still lacks Bixby’s ability to tie together actions. Only Bixby can follow, “Open my last photo and post it to Facebook.”

What’s better, Bixby lives on top of other apps and knows what’s going on in them. When you’re looking at a photo, you can say “add stickers,” and it knows what you mean. When dictation might be called for, Bixby replaces a keyboard…

What Bixby lacks—at least for now—is Iron Man’s execution.

MORE: Testing Bixby, Samsung’s Ambitious Plan to Make You Talk Like Iron Man – WSJ