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Samsung will debut Bixby 2.0 with the next Galaxy Note

The voice assistant is getting a long-due overhaul.

Samsung has been teasing its upgraded Bixby 2.0 assistant for several months now, but when is it actually going to show up in something you can buy? It shouldn't take too much longer. The company's AI research center head Gray G. Lee told the Korea Herald that the new AI helper will arrive with the upcoming flagship phone in the second half of 2018 -- in other words, the next Galaxy Note. While Lee didn't show all of Samsung's cards, he promised better natural language processing, faster responses and better results in noisy environments.

As outlined last October, Bixby 2.0 should make use of Samsung's Viv acquisition to both encourage more conversational commands as well as deep linking, multiple users and more. It's not certain if everything mentioned at Bixby 2.0's unveiling will make the cut. However, it should help the tech giant's rough-around-the-edges companion catch up to Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri and Google Assistant -- important when it's hoping to use Bixby in everything from fridges to smart speakers.