Bixby Voice Forever is the world’s first personalized Voice Assistant. Currently, all A.I. Voice Assistants have their own personalities attached to them, but none of them are personalized to the user. This project is the beginning of a new era of emotional intelligence, where people can achieve more intimate and meaningful relationships with their A.I. voice assistants.

Our brief was to create awareness of Samsung’s Bixby A.I. voice assistant to Indian mobile users across India by demonstrating through Bixby’s technology Samsung’s purpose of creating meaningful innovations using transformative future technologies. Innovation not just for the sake of it, but to empower the future of humankind.

Bixby Voice Forever is the world’s first personalized Voice Assistant. The first device was created for Sonal; a mother of two and Motor Neurone Disease patient. All MND patients lose their ability to speak. Before Sonal lost her speech, we engineered her own personalized Voice Assistant so she can leave her natural voice alive in her children’s smartphones and throughout all of their Samsung home appliances. We first recorded her voice and synthesized all tones, pitches and unique characteristics to create a realistic voice file we could integrate into Bixby’s A.I. code; to make her voice, the voice of Bixby. Then, we personalized the wake-up command from “Hi Bixby” to “Hi Mama,” and personalized the responses, so it always answers with her children’s names and personal information. By creating a personalized voice assistant, we can imagine a future where we all have a more meaningful relationship with Artificial Intelligence.

1st: Development started in collaboration with the MND NGO Asha Ek Hope foundation in May 2018, they explained how we could support them in the fight against the disease and helped us find the right patient. 2nd: Found Sonal, an MND patient willing to be the first to try this new technology. 3rd: Recorded her complete vocal range and created an exact digital replica of it. 4th: Synthesized the unique details of her speech using a custom Deep Neural Network algorithm. 5th: Integrated the Voice file into Bixby’s A.I. code, to make her real voice, the voice of Bixby. 6th: Personalized the wake-up command from “Hi Bixby” to Hi Mama.” 7th: Personalized the responses, so it always answers with her children’s names and relevant personal information. 8th: Created the final personalized Bixby devices and gifted them to the family in September, 2018. The film launch date was 12/Sep/2018.

Bixby Voice Forever is the world’s first personalized Voice Assistant. Sonal's personalized Bixby Voice Assistant “speaks” with her real and authentic voice. It wakes up with “Hi Mama” instead of “Hi Bixby.” The assistant always responds with her children's names and relevant personal information. The A.I. voice assistant works throughout all their Samsung Smart home appliances, including the Samsung Family Hub and Samsung smart TV. The devices are currently in use by Sonal’s family.

The personalized Bixby Voice Assistant was developed in by Samsung R&D center in India. We are currently in the prototype stage of our project, but Samsung engineers are working towards a future where any MND patient (Or anyone) can have their own personalized voice assistant.