Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will reportedly release an updated version of its digital assistant at its developer conference this week.

The South Korean company will unveil Bixby 2.0, the next version of its artificial intelligence assistant, on Wednesday, according to The Korean Herald. Bixby 2.0 is expected to include new features and broader availability.

The Korean tech giant announced the appointment Thursday of Samsung Research America’s vice chief Chung Eui-suk as the new head of its service intelligence group, which is in charge of developing Bixby and other artificial intelligence services.

Samsung originally announced Bixby in March, ahead of the launch of its flagship devices Galaxy S8 and S8+, but the voice element of the digital assistant faced significant delays, eventually arriving in the U.S. in July.

Since becoming available, Bixby has received a lackluster response from users, with reports that it was unreliable. Competing in an already crowded market with the likes of established services such as Microsoft Corp.’s Cortana, Apple Inc.’s Siri and Google LLC’s Assistant means that Samsung will need to up its game with Bixby 2.0.

Not much is known about Bixby 2.0, but Samsung is expected to expand the AI assistant to third-party services and products, which means it will no longer be limited to Samsung smartphones. Google Assistant, for example, has been available for a year and has already expanded to a variety of devices, including smartphones, smart speakers and headphones. BMW AG is already working on incorporating Cortana as well Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa into its vehicles.  

“We will supplement the incomplete parts of Bixby 1.0 at Bixby 2.0,” said Koh Dong-jin, mobile business chief at Samsung.

When Samsung launched the Galaxy S8, S8+ and later the Note8, all three of the devices included a dedicated Bixby button, which users can press to access the digital assistant home screen or wake up Bixby Voice instead of using the voice command “Hey Bixby.” The Verge described the Bixby button as structural bloatware, while some users were curious if they could repurpose the button to access other features or a digital assistant competitor such as Google Assistant instead.

Samsung doesn’t allow this and quickly put a stop to third-party developers trying to remap the button, but the company did issue a software update last month that allows S8, S8+ and Note8 users to disable the Bixby button. This came after users were complaining about accidentally pressing the button and launching Bixby.

The feature hasn’t rolled out to all S8, S8+ and Note8, but when it does, users will see a toggle at the top of Bixby Home, which they can toggle to disable the button.

Image: Aaron Yoo; Flickr