South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. eager to restore its disgraced reputation after the fallout with explosion-prone Galaxy Note 7 has gone all-out to sophisticate voice-activated personal assistance agent in its new handheld device to outperform similar services already available by Google and Apple by the time it unveils to the market early next year.

The key is to differentiate its artificial intelligence (AI) feature with Google’s Pixel phone powered by Google Assistant that has already hit the market in September.

Samsung Electronics deems its version of intelligent personal assistant system has an edge over Google Assistant whose service is mainly restricted to English-speaking realm in markets and users beyond.

The company’s main flagship Galaxy S8, expected to be released in February next year, could gain the upper hand in emerging markets in Asia, Central and Latin America, and Russia as its voice-activated personal assistant would support 11 languages including Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese and Japanese.

Samsung Electronics also seeks to expand its partnership and networks with other companies such as Uber, Kayak, Hotels.com, or Amazon in order to provide connected services with its AI-based personal assistant.

In terms of language support, Samsung’s AI assistant would fall behind iPhone’s voice assistant Siri that can serve 17 languages. It can beat Samsung’s new device if it can make the voice-activated service smart as well as versatile.

Samsung has been scurrying to enlarge smart connections using its broad hardware and business network as the conglomerate churns out products ranging from home appliances and apartments to financial, retail, and hospitality services.

As of 13:12 p.m. Wednesday, Samsung Electronics shares fell 0.54 percent to 1,643,000 won in Seoul trading.

By Shin Hyun-kyu

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]