Samsung’s new Bixby Text Call feature can answer the phone for you…in your own voice

During media previews of the new Galaxy S23 series, Samsung mentioned an intriguing Bixby Text Call feature as part of One UI 5.1, which, as the name suggests, was claimed to let you answer calls by texting. But this functionality was nowhere to be found in the actual Unpacked keynote, and was not rolled out to S23 models running on the initial One UI 5.1 software.

But Samsung has now detailed what Bixby Text Call entails, and it can get quite dystopian. As promised, this feature will let you answer a phone call by typing a message, which Bixby converts to audio that’s played to the caller on your behalf. Presumably, this uses the default Bixby voice, which is fair enough.

Here’s where it gets creepy—you can set Bixby to answer calls in your voice. Through the new Bixby Custom Voice Creator, you’ll be able to record different sentences, which the assistant then analyses to create an AI-generated copy of your voice and tone. This particular feature is only available in Korean, but Samsung has plans to expand the use of this generated voice beyond phone calls, although it did not mention the potential uses.

Samsung’s new voice-mimicking feature comes hot on the heels of Microsoft, which announced a similar technology called VALL-E earlier this year. At the time, the tech giant claimed it could clone your voice using just a three-second sample, which can then be used to say literally anything while maintaining your vocal patterns and imitating the acoustic environment of the sample.

Bixby Text Call is part of a wider update of Samsung’s much-maligned virtual assistant. You’ll now be able to customise the Bixby wake word (again, currently only available in Korean), and it will also be able to understand and process follow-up requests based on context and associated words used in previous interactions. For example, you’ll be able to launch a workout on Samsung Health and then ask Bixby to play music that best suits said workout, simply by saying “Play music for this workout.”

Bixby also has more on-device capabilities, letting it run commands such as setting a timer, taking a screenshot or turning on the flashlight entirely offline. This will be available in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Korean. The changes to Bixby will be rolled out to users in February through February, presumably the one that was pushed out to S23 users earlier this week.