New Delhi: Samsung has recently announced a major revamp of its digital assistant Bixby, confirming that it is not abandoning the assistant despite making Google’s Gemini the default on the Galaxy phones last year. The company has stated that the latest version of Bixby is entering beta testing as part of the One UI 8.5 update, which itself has been in beta since December 2025. The revamped Bixby is expected to debut along with the Galaxy S26 series, which is widely expected to launch in February 2026.
The announcement comes a year after Samsung partnered with Google at the Galaxy S25 launch in January 2025 to make Gemini the default assistant on Galaxy phones, pushing Bixby into a secondary role. Samsung has stated the latest version of Bixby is being redesigned as a conversational device agent focused mainly on controlling phone settings and understanding natural language requests. Instead of using exact settings names, users will be able to describe what they want in plain language. Bixby will then figure out the intent and change the relevant settings.
Samsung stated that Bixby will also look at current device settings and suggest fixes, instead of only giving generic instructions. The latest Bixby will also support live web search through a partnership with Perplexity. This means Bixby will be able to pull up-to-date information from the web and show results inside its own interface, instead of sending users to a browser.
