Samsung's Rumoured Virtual Assistant Bixby and Samsung Pay Mini Spotted on Official Site

Samsung's rumoured virtual assistant's name seems to be all but confirmed to be 'Bixby' as it has now been spotted in an image posted on the beta page for company's payment service - Samsung Pay on its official website. The virtual assistant has been tipped to be launched alongside company's upcoming flagship Galaxy S8 smartphone.

Apart from giving away the name of the virtual assistant, the image also shows a "mini" option, which indicates that there might be a stripped-down version of Samsung Pay in works as well, as pointed out in a report by GalaxyClub.

Lee Kyeong-tae, Samsung's vice president for mobile communications, said last year that the upcoming Galaxy high-end smartphone will feature "an enhanced artificial-intelligence service." At the time, Lee didn't give any details about the virtual assistant. However, reports from November last year suggested that Samsung's AI-based virtual assistant will have male and female voices called Bixby and Kestra, respectively.

In December, it was reported that Samsung's virtual assistant will be integrated with the native apps on the upcoming Galaxy S8 smartphone. The South Korean company pushed its AI development after it acquired US-based artificial-intelligence software company-Viv Labs. Interestingly, the developers at Viv Labs also founded Siri, Apple's iconic digital assistant.

On the other hand, Samsung Pay mini is expected to be an online payments solution from the South Korean company, as opposed to the full-fledged payments solution which allows users to pay offline as well. Even though Samsung was earlier pegged to launch the Galaxy S8 smartphone at MWC 2017 in February, recent reports have suggested that the phone is expected to be launched on April 18 at a dedicated Unpacked event.