Samsung Electronics Co. said it plans to start the full-fledged service of Bixby, an artificial intelligence program installed in its latest flagship Galaxy S8 smartphones.

While Samsung officially released the Galaxy S8 smartphone last month, the Bixby service was still in launch preparations.

Through deep-learning technology, Samsung said Bixby will learn users' speaking habits as well as other information to provide them with accurate voice assistance.

Market watchers said Bixby is likely to play a decisive role in further sales of the Galaxy S8, which has been facing various controversies including red-tinted displays and WiFi connectivity problems.

The display issue came to light when a few users claimed the flagship device's screen had an unusual reddish tint.

Samsung ruled out speculation that Galaxy S8 smartphones have faulty displays, claiming the controversial red tint on some devices can be corrected by users. 

Bixby is available for the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus through updates. It is available in the Korean language, but Samsung plans to launch an English-language edition within the first half of this year.

The tech giant said the service will adopt more languages down the road including Chinese and Spanish.

Samsung added that Bixby is capable of executing 3,000 different tasks, and the program also understands millions of expressions spoken by users.
(Yonhap)