Samsung to open Bixby up to developers

Samsung is opening up its voice-activated assistant Bixby to developers, the company announced at the Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. It's one of three moves the company is taking -- along with expanding Bixby to more devices and expanding support for more languages -- to increase Bixby's footprint.

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Bixby will transform "from a simple mobile voice assistant to a scalable AI platform," Eui-Suk Chung, EVP and head of software and AI, said during the conference keynote address. Samsung's three-part strategy for expanding Bixby's reach "will lay the groundwork for Bixby to be our singular commitment to AI," Chung said.

Samsung will be rolling out a new set of developer tools and launching the Bixby Marketplace to support developers. "No one can buy an ecosystem, you have to build it and build it together," Chung said.

Samsung's wide-ranging product portfolio, from TVs to refrigerators, are "essential building blocks for an AI-enabled ecosystem," Chung said. The Korean company sells more than 500 million devices every year and plans to start adding Bixby to more of its products. In the future, Samsung expects more connected experiences and third-party devices to support Bixby.

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"AI will truly transform every experience we have with consumer electronics," Chung said

Meanwhile, in the coming months, Bixby will be expanded to support five more languages.

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