Samsung's Bixby reboot shows up early with Perplexity in tow

Samsung hasn’t been particularly quiet about its coming Perplexity partnership, and now we’re getting a first look at the Bixby reboot powered by the AI service.

Rumors have been swirling for a while now around Samsung working with Perplexity to bolster its mostly-forgotten Bixby voice assistant. While Samsung continues a tight partnership with Google over Gemini, the company confirmed earlier this year that it would offer AI features beyond Gemini in the future.

Last we’d heard, Samsung was working with Perplexity to hand off everything but the “basic” Bixby interactions off to the AI assistant and that the functionality would arrive on the Galaxy S26 series next year.

Now, though, we’re getting an early look.

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As noted by SammyGuru, one user on Twitter/X found that the Perplexity-enhanced Bixby was live on their device through an app update. Bixby version 4.0.50.4 seemingly enables the feature on One UI 8.5’s beta, but that version hasn’t been made widely available yet.

In a screenshot provided, we can see Bixby responding to a weather query, recommending wearing a jacket, detailing wind chill, and adding in further information about the day’s forecasted conditions. Assuming the original question was something like “should I wear a jacket today,” the current Bixby simply doesn’t respond at all. In a standard weather query, it also just doesn’t provide nearly as much information.

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