Samsung this morning showed of a new version of its Bixby voice assistant, which is now more conversational and is able to continue your conversation when you ask a follow-up question. For example, if you first ask the assistant about concerts over Labor Day weekend, as was demoed on stage at a Samsung press conference today, you can then follow-up by asking about another date without having to repeat the entire question. Other new features were also demoed, including support for making reservations, and the ability to tap into apps like Yelp, Uber, Ticketmaster, Fandango, OpenTable, and Google Maps.
The app integration allows Bixby to answer questions without opening the apps directly. Even if you don’t have those apps installed, Bixby will be able to use them for results, the company said.
Samsung also noted it was working with these partners so you could more easily take actions. For instance, instead of saying ‘buy a ticket on Ticketmaster” you could just say “buy a ticket.” With Google, the integrations will allow for things like routing, navigation and points-of-interest.
Bixby will also get smarter in time, as it will learn what you’ve done in the past to inform its responses.
One example Samsung showed off was with reservations – it will fill in the number of people in your party and the time, based on your prior bookings.
Separately, Adobe also announced Adobe Scan for Bixby Vision, which allows the Galaxy Note 9’s camera to automatically recognize documents and will suggest opening them in the Adobe Scan app.