Google and Apple’s AI-driven digital assistants may have some competition with a new device from Samsung next year.
Samsung just revealed plans to include its own AI personal assistant in the soon-to-be-announced Galaxy S8 smartphone at recent press event.
The artificial intelligence will come from an open AI platform created by part of the team originally responsible for Apple’s Siri.
Samsung recently acquired the open AI platform company, Viv Labs, and plans to incorporate the AI into not just future versions of the Galaxy line of phones, but also Samsung’s broader range of IoT devices.
Google also recently launched its AI-powered Google Assistant, which is built into Google’s new smartphone and smart home hub. The search powerhouse said it plans to continue to develop new hardware with its AI assistant at the core.
Samsung, on the other hand, currently has a larger established base of connected products across connected home, appliances, and consumer electronics. The plan is for the new artificial intelligence assistant to integrate across those many connected devices within Samsung’s ecosystem, which is the primary reason the team at Viv decided to work specifically with Samsung, detailed in a press conference.
Other voice-driven digital assistants have been in the market for a while, however. Amazon’s Alexa-enabled Echo smart home speakers connect consumers with other smart products in their homes and third-party services elsewhere.
In Samsung’s case, the Viv Labs open AI platform appears to somewhat invert the model.
The idea is that the AI platform would be embedded into the devices for the end-user and then third-party brands can build their services around that platform, which could then be seamlessly added to the list of feature sets within that connected product, without any need to additional apps or setups on the end-user’s side.
However, this new breed of natively integrated AI-assistants in the products and services themselves seems to be the direction the major players want to push the market.
