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
Google launches Personal Intelligence feature in Gemini app, challenging Apple Intelligence
Google is letting users test a new artificial intelligence tool that connects information from various apps like Gmail and Google Photos to provide personalized answers in its chatbot. The feature, called Personal Intelligence, is available for personal accounts, Google said in a blog post Wednesday. “Whether it’s connecting a thread in your emails to a video you watched or finding nuance in your photo library, Gemini now understands context without being told where to look,” Josh Woodward, vice president of Google Labs and the Gemini app, wrote in the post. It’s Google’s latest attempt to build more reasoning AI capabilities within its Gemini app and lure users as the company goes head-to-head with OpenAI and others in the increasingly competitive generative AI market. While Gemini could already retrieve information from Google apps, the company said Wednesday that Gemini 3 can now “reason across your data to surface proactive insights.” The new feature will compete with Apple Intelligence, Apple’s personal AI system that integrates apps to help with writing, image creation and understanding context. Apple said Monday it chose Google to power its AI features, including a major Siri upgrade expected later this year. Personal Intelligence will first be available to Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S., the company said, and will be added
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
Litera Launches Mobile AI App For Lawyers on the Move
Litera has launched an iOS mobile app for Litera One, so that lawyers can tap the legal tech company’s AI skills, via its Lito assistant, while on the move. The company said: ‘Lito [will] be accessible across the web and Outlook, and [provide] a mobile experience with true two-way continuity. Users can ask questions, run workflows, review outputs, compare documents, and even dictate hands-free queries while on the move without losing secure access to firm-specific documents, data, or workflows.’ And here’s a quick overview of what’s possible: ‘Conversational AI: Ask questions, launch workflows, and move work forward via text or speech-to-text Document Review: Analyze documents and generate structured, actionable outputs Document Comparison: Use Litera’s market-leading Compare technology for AI-powered comparison, summarization, and risk analysis Business Development: Create client-ready summaries, updates, and insights faster.’ Pasquale Colella, VP, Global SaaS Operations at Litera, commented: ‘Lawyers need to stay productive whether they’re traveling, moving between meetings, or preparing to walk into a client conversation. ‘With Litera One Mobile, that continuity is seamless. Work begun on the web—or in Microsoft Word or Outlook—is instantly available on mobile, and anything started on mobile carries effortlessly back to the desktop. This ensures lawyers can keep momentum between touchpoints without restarting
