Samsung Electronics Senior Executive Vice President Chung Ui-seok, overseeing the software and AI of the Information Technology & Mobile Communication Business, speaks at “Bixby Developers’ Day” at InterContinental Hotel in southeastern Seoul on Nov. 20.

“All home appliance products produced by Samsung Electronics will be outfitted with the “AI secretary” Bixby by 2020, and Bixby-enabled items will top 500 million units.” said Samsung Electronics Senior Executive Vice President Chung Ui-seok.

Chung, who oversees the software and AI of the Information Technology & Mobile Communication Business, made the remarks at “Bixby Developers’ Day” at InterContinental Hotel in southeastern Seoul on Nov. 20.

“The Bixby is the sole AI platform used not just to specific items, but also made available to other diverse products.” he said.

Samsung Electronics plans to evolve the Bixby into an intelligent platform that can be interoperable among gadgets, Senior Executive Vice President Chung said. To this end, he said, his company will channel $22 billion (25 trillion won) into the Bixby and IoT sectors.

As PCs changed into mobiles, an era of intelligence focusing on AI has emerged. Samsung Electronics declared its determination to spearhead the future technology industry by establishing voice recognition-based AI platform Bixby infrastructure.

To this end, Samsung Electronics established an open platform to allow outsider developers’ participation on a voluntary basis and made public all developers’ tools. The Bixby Developers’ Day, the first one in Korea, was designed to make Bixby known to developers’ communities and spur the development of Bixby.

A view of “Bixby Developers’ Day,” the first one in Korea, designed to make Bixby know to developers’ communities and spur the development of Bixby. (Photos: Samsung Electronics)

Samsung Electronics’ scheme to develop Bixby into an intelligence platform began to gain ground this year, he said. Bixby is changing into an open platform, and it will become an integrated AI brand that will connect a variety of devices and IoT services, he said.

In order to make Bixby interactive among all devices, developers’ tools are required to be offered without discriminations to manufacturers other than Samsung Electronics, 3rd party developers and persons wanting to realize functions of Bixby.

In a related development, Samsung Electronics unveiled the Bixby software developer kit (SDK) and the Bixby Developer Studio to the public on the day. Earlier, the Bixby Developer Studio was made public during “Samsung Developer Conference 2018 held in the United States.

The Bixby SDK is a software used to produce apps and services compatible with the Bixby. Samsung Electronics has a strategy of developing the Bixby ecosystem by making public the Bixby SDK like Amazon’s sound recognition platform Alex and Google Assistant, which both have turned to an open platform format.

In 1998, Google introduced a search engine, the 14th one, and an earlier entry into the AI secretary market, still in a dawning stage, will guarantee a long-term head start, and Bixby will lead to making AI part of daily life by invigorating the Bixby ecosystem, BipLab CTO Adam Cryer said.

In 2016, Samsung Electronics acquired the Silicon Vally tech firm BipLab, which developed Apple’s voice recognition service Sari. At that time, concerning collaboration between Samsung Electronics and BipLab, the then BipLab CEO said Samsung Electronics, producing smartphones and diverse variety of home appliances, is the best partner to realize a dream of creating an AI-connected world.