Samsung has been using its virtual assistant Bixby as a strong marketing tool for its newly launched flagship smartphones Galaxy S8 and S8+. And on first impression, it does work. Yet, there may be many out there who would be wary to use a smartphone with an entirely new AI. Keeping this section in mind, Samsung has made a smart move to ship Galaxy S8 pre-installed with another AI, the much-preferred Google Assistant.

Well, a report from Samsung’s home country stated, citing industry sources, that ‘Galaxy S8 will likely have the Google Assistant program, which has similar features to Bixby’. Google Assistant has been around for some time now, and users response to it has been on the positive side. Thus, its inclusion on Galaxy S8, alongside Samsung’s own Bixby, will only augur well for the Korean giant.

Read: How to use Bixby on Samsung Galaxy S8

However, suggesting the reason behind this move by Samsung, the report quoted an industry watcher as saying that ‘if the Galaxy S8 comes with two voice assistants, users would be able to compare the two and opt for the one with the better performance.’

It’s not only flagship devices, but even budget smartphones might soon boast of the Bixby feature, as per the report, as Samsung plans to bring the AI assistant on budget smartphones as well. Therefore, ‘in the near future, the Bixby and Google Assistant will be found inside a single device and compete with each other.’

Read: Will Samsung release Bixby for Galaxy S6, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy Note 5?

Now, why doesn’t this come as a surprise to us? Well, because on hindsight, this isn’t exactly a novice step from Samsung. It has been using this tactic for long now. Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge came with both S Voice and Google Now pre-installed, giving users the option to use any of these two.

via Korean Herald