Like all the major players in the mobile business, Samsung has its own voice-activated virtual assistant preloaded on various devices, including its high-end Galaxy smartphones. It may not be as popular as rivals like Alexa and Siri, but Bixby is here to stay. Samsung is already developing new Bixby features that will be available next year right alongside its Galaxy S10 and new foldable smartphone, a report said a few days ago. And thanks to Bixby, the Galaxy S10 might be able to do something the iPhone XS and Pixel 3 phones can’t.
A new report from The Korea Herald says that Bixby will soon be able to deliver company information from financial statements, including revenue and profit data, and it’ll even be able to let users invest in certain stocks upon request.
Voice assistants are already able to help smartphone users trigger various actions on the phone or at home, but you can’t order Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, or any others to invest in stocks. That’s the kind of advanced feature that would require the user to give Bixby access to investment accounts that could then be controlled via voice to initiate transactions. All that data would also have to be completely secure.
Not many details are available about the feature right now, but the report notes that DeepSearch, a local provider of financial data analysis, and other companies are working on the Bixby investment project. The service should be completed in the first half of 2019, according to the company.
“[DeepSearch’s] goal is to allow users to ask Bixby about risks, investment opportunities, financial information and issues about the companies around them,” said chief executive DeepSearch Kim Jae-yun at the Bixby Developer Day on Tuesday. “Ultimately, Bixby will also be able to analyze the company and invest users’ money in shares.”
The Galaxy S10 and the Galaxy F foldable phone are both expected to launch by March 2019, which means they would be among the first Samsung devices ready to make use of this new Bixby feature if this report pans out.
