Samsung will open Bixby voice assistant to third-party devs this year

Samsung is planning to open up its Bixby voice assistant platform to third-party developers. The tech conglomerate is slated to introduce a software development kit at its annual Samsung Developer Conference in November that will provide resources and documentation to build apps leveraging the voice platform. It will also release the API needed for third-party integration of Bixby with new and existing apps.

Samsung has been slower to make inroads on the recent voice trend compared with the market leaders. Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant have been making fast strides to integrate their systems with outside development opportunities, which means a staggering number of supported devices for both voice systems. Google said in May that Assistant can connect with more than 5,000 home devices, while Amazon just announced that Alexa works with 20,000 devices. Opening up third-party support is a critical move if Samsung wants to chip away at the majority market share for those two rivals. While Bixby is supported on other first-party smart tech from Samsung, the company just unveiled its first smart speaker last month.

Anna Washenko