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Talk to your phone like you would a helpful roommate. Samsung has quietly rewritten Bixby’s playbook — and given it a new job title: conversational device agent. The fifth One UI 8.5 beta arrived with February’s Android security patch, and tucked inside that update is the next-generation Bixby Samsung has been hinting at.
What changes? For starters, natural language controls reach deeper into the phone. Say you don’t want the screen to dim while you’re reading, and Bixby will flip the setting that keeps the display on while you’re looking. It’s small, practical, and strangely liberating. Short commands. Complex behavior. The assistant now bridges casual speech and precise device actions.
Search behavior has evolved too. Bixby can tap the web in real time and return current results right inside its interface. That means answers are fresher, and follow-up questions feel less robotic — you’re not waiting for canned replies, you’re getting live information woven into the conversation.
If you’re running One UI 8.5 Beta 5, you can test this new experience today. Availability is limited for now: Germany, India, Korea, Poland, the UK, and the US are on the early list, with Samsung planning a broader rollout. The company says One UI 8.5 and the upgraded Bixby will arrive officially alongside the Galaxy S26 lineup on February 25.
Why this matters: assistants that control hardware through everyday language change how we interact with devices. They remove friction. They let you focus on tasks, not menus. Privacy and accuracy will be the real tests — and the way Samsung balances on-device processing, cloud queries, and visible controls will determine whether this feels like a convenience or an intrusion.
In short: Bixby is shifting from a voice helper to a proactive device agent that combines natural-language control with up-to-the-minute web answers.
Expect iteration. Expect more regional rollouts. And if your phone’s in the Beta 5 club, go try a conversation — then tell someone what happened.
Source: gsmarena
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