Another year, another Galaxy Unpacked, bringing with it another flagship Samsung phone for everyone to enjoy. Each Unpacked also brings with it a reminder that, despite everything that has happened over the past 8 years, Samsung is inexplicably still trying to make people use Bixby.
Unsurprisingly, especially if you’ve been paying attention to rumors, Bixby is being brought in to help power Galaxy AI. But slightly strangely it seems that Bixby isn’t taking the center-stage, with Google Gemini claiming most of the spotlight for itself. Clearly Samsung is struggling to let Bixby go, and that needs to change.
Bixby's role on Galaxy S25
You’d be forgiven for not realizing that Bixby is actually available on Galaxy S25. It wasn’t mentioned during the Unpacked, and it’s been revealed that Google Gemini is the default AI on the entire S25 lineup. But during a Galaxy S25 launch event, Samsung did confirm that Bixby is still present and plays an important role in Galaxy AI in tandem with Gemini.
Specifically, Samsung clarified that Gemini is used as a search tool, while Bixby is more about controlling the actual device itself. To put things another way, all the on-device AI is powered by Bixby, whereas cloud AI features rely on a mix of both services. Why? I’m not entirely sure considering Gemini Nano exists, and is capable of running on something as relatively low-powered as the Google Pixel 8. The Galaxy S24 shouldn’t have any issues utilizing Google’s on-device AI either.
Samsung spent a great deal of time talking about new Galaxy S25 AI features, particularly those relating to Google Gemini, but didn’t elaborate on the kind of things Bixby can do that you wouldn’t find elsewhere.
Samsung also confirmed that it isn't the old-school Bixby that’s been floating around since the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8. This is an AI-infused Bixby that has been powered by Samsung’s Gauss Large Language Model (LLM). This upgrade offers multimodal AI capabilities through Bixby, which means it can handle multiple types of data simultaneously — which includes the ability to understand images and text.
This new Bixby has also been designed to be more conversational and can understand natural language. Essentially making communication with the on-device AI easier and less painful than it would have been with the older virtual assistant version of Bixby.
The problem here is that Samsung hasn’t actually elaborated much on what Bixby can actually do. The company spent a great deal of time talking about new Galaxy S25 AI features, particularly those relating to Google Gemini, but didn’t elaborate on the kind of things Bixby can do that you wouldn’t find elsewhere. Really there’s no clear distinction between Bixby’s capabilities and those of other local AI models like Gemini Nano.
To the point where I’m just confused as to why Bixby needs to be there at all. Isn’t it time to send this particular price of software to a farm upstate?
Samsung needs to let Bixby go
If Bixby were a Google product, then it would have been killed off a long time ago and sent to join the legions of other services Killed by Google. It’s one of those things that Google gets a lot of flack for, and it’s somewhat commendable that Samsung has stuck with Bixby rather than canning the software at the first sign of trouble. But it’s pretty clear at this point that Bixby is not going to take off, and it’s time to throw in the towel.
While there are plenty of virtual assistants that have been neglected over the years, like Apple’s Siri, people at least warmed to the idea of using them. Even if it was just to hunt down their missing phone or set timers when they’re cooking. That was never the case with Bixby, it was always just… there.
Samsung did a lot to try and push people into using Bixby. But measures like the dedicated Bixby button that initially couldn’t be remapped, and not supporting Google Assistant only proved to annoy people. With time many of those unpopular decisions were reversed, and as the years went on Bixby faded further and further into obscurity. Even Samsung’s attempt to offer a Bixby-powered rival to Amazon’s Echo went absolutely nowhere.
Galaxy AI would have been the perfect opportunity to roll Bixby out to pasture, and let the likes of Google do all the hard work. Or, if Samsung was hell bent on developing its own AI, severing ties with Bixby and starting with something completely fresh. Instead Samsung is clinging to Bixby like Linus clings to his blanket.
I really don’t understand why Samsung has been so stubbornly sticking with Bixby for so long. The response to the software has been room temperature at best and downright scornful the rest of the time. The company has to be aware of Bixby’s poor reputation, and it’s powered on anyway. The only thing I can think of is that Samsung doesn’t want to admit defeat, and toss away all the work it’s put into trying to make Bixby happen. And really, that’s something Samsung should have just pulled the trigger on many years ago.
Bottom Line
In many ways it’s incredible that Bixby actually made it this far. It’s rare to see a piece of tech met with such abject apathy from the majority of people, let alone one that endures simply because its creators refuse to let go. Each passing year it’s felt like Bixby has become less and less relevant, with Samsung even failing to give the software any focus during the Galaxy S25’s launch event.
And yet Bixby is still around, with upgraded capabilities and responsibility for a pretty important part of Galaxy AI’s repertoire. Samsung and Google may be partnered in AI, but I understand why Samsung wouldn’t be too reliant on Google for Galaxy AI’s success. It’s just that, maybe, it’s about time that it gave up on Bixby and started work on something new.
It’s time for Samsung to get a reality check, and dump Bixby once and for all.
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