Samsung Tests Perplexity-Powered Bixby in One UI 8.5 Beta

Samsung is seeking to make its Bixby voice assistant a worthy competitor to Google Gemini by leveraging Perplexity AI. A new leak from One UI 8.5 beta users shows that Bixby version 4.0.50.4 enables the assistant to send complex questions to Perplexity's reasoning engine, similar to what Apple Intelligence does with ChatGPT. This provides users with detailed, research-backed answers rather than simple web search results, according to SammyGuru.

In the leaked example, a user asked Bixby about the weather, and the assistant used Perplexity to generate a forecast along with practical advice, such as whether to carry an umbrella. The interface features a card-style design that complements the visual refresh in One UI 8.5.

This solves a long-standing issue in which Bixby, much like Apple's Siri, struggled with conversational context compared to newer AI options. This meant Bixby largely helped users control system ...