Samsung revives its Bixby assistant with an AI brain transplant from Perplexity
Samsung’s Bixby is back. Or at least, a newly revamped and upgraded version of the AI assistant is back. Bixby is returning with a conversational facelift, a Perplexity-powered brain, and a spot in Samsung's One UI 8.5 beta operating system, which began rolling out to Galaxy S25 testers this week. Bixby promises to sound more natural, understand conversational context, and actually do things you want. Samsung confirmed the new version of Bixby will debut publicly with the first stable One UI 8.5 build in a blog post, which it mysteriously deleted not long after posting it. The announcement said Bixby will arrive alongside the Galaxy S26 series in the coming weeks. For now, it’s limited to a beta release in select markets, but its ambitions are global. The biggest change may be that Bixby finally understands what you mean, grasping context in ways it never had before. Ask it to keep the screen on while you’re using your phone, and it will toggle the setting itself without wandering off on the internet. The new Bixby aims to eliminate the moments of error so many former users complained about. And Bixby's model won't be alone in the smartphone. Samsung has integrated Perplexity, the AI search tool
Amazon’s AI assistant comes to the web with Alexa.com
Amazon’s AI-powered overhaul of its digital assistant, now known as Alexa+, is coming to the web. On Monday, at the start of CES 2026 in Las Vegas, the company announced the official launch of a new website, Alexa.com, which is now rolling out to all Alexa+ Early Access customers. The site will allow customers to use Alexa+ online, much as you can do today with other AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. While Alexa-powered devices, including Amazon’s Echo smart speakers and screens, have a well-established footprint with over 600 million devices sold worldwide, Amazon believes that for its AI assistant to be competitive, it will need to be everywhere — not just in the home, but also on the phone and on the web. Plus, the expansion could later give anyone a way to interact with Alexa+, even if they don’t have a device in their home. Related to this expansion, Amazon is updating its Alexa mobile app, which will now offer a more “agent-forward” experience. Or, in other words, it’s putting a chatbot-style interface on the app’s homepage, making it seem more like a typical AI chatbot. (While you could chat with Alexa before in the app, the focus is now on
