The Google Assistant is the only voice assistant on countless Android devices but things are a bit different on Samsung’s high-end devices. The company has its own voice assistant called Bixby on flagships like the Galaxy Note 9 come with it in addition to the one from Google. Samsung is obviously in no mood to do away with Bixby in favor of Google Assistant but it’s not ruling out a collaboration with the internet search giant in the field of artificial intelligence to improve services like Bixby.

Leveraging its leading manufacturer status

Samsung’s president and CEO of consumer electronics Kim Hyun-suk said during a press conference at IFA 2018 in Berlin that Samsung can leverage its position as the leading device manufacturer in the world to negotiate a collaboration with Google on AI. “Samsung is developing its own voice assistant, Bixby, but we could consider various (forms) of collaboration with Google in the field,” he said.

“For example, we would call up Bixby, but it could lead us to one of Google’s services, like Google Maps,” Hyun-suk added. His comments were in response to a question about Samsung adopting Google Assistant for its smart home appliances like other manufacturers have. He also highlighted that Samsung is capable of making any type or hardware product while leaders in the AI field don’t have such advanced manufacturing capabilities. They can only make simple speakers which can run the voice-control software.

“Samsung is a company that sells around 500 million units of devices worldwide every year, and we can use this as our bargaining power to negotiate the level of cooperation with AI leaders like Google,” he said.