To say that Bixby hasn't been faring too well in the first-generation AI assistant wars would be an understatement. As few are even thinking about Samsung's voice-enabled companion these days. But does that mean Bixby's on the losing side of the never-ending battle for market share?
Not necessarily, especially if Samsung finds her a nice cushy retirement role. In fact, its AI scientists have just recently drafted a concept of one such solution. And it's a pretty straightforward idea, though that isn't to say it would be easy to implement, as is the case with anything in the world of machine intelligence.
A saving grace for Bixby or just one for the meme archives?
Namely, a newly surfaced patent application from Samsung reveals that its ML model scientists have been discussing some sort of a delegative AI-driven mobile experience in which Bixby would still be at its core but help with connecting you with various better more specialized virtual assistants such as Alexa, Cortana, and all those losers.
From that perspective, what this patent is proposing is to transform Bixby into a CPU with an attitude, so to speak. The IP documentation does not specify any OS details, which makes sense, seeing how the concept should be largely platform-agnostic on its own. But between Google begging Samsung to stop wasting time with Bixby and Samsung saying “nuh-uh” while continuing to embrace its own eccentricities, this is one of those rare patent applications that seems like a done deal from the moment we first encounter it. Whether this belief has any basis in reality remains to be seen, but Bixby better be trying hard in that dungeon master role if it ever befalls her.
