What Is Bixby? Samsung's Assistant Explained (and How to Disable It)

Bixby is Samsung's voice assistant, built into Galaxy phones, tablets, watches, TVs and appliances. If you are looking for "Siri on Samsung", Bixby is the closest equivalent — though most Galaxy owners use Google's assistant instead.

What Bixby is good at

Bixby's genuine strength is device control. It can reach settings that Google's assistant cannot, because Samsung built it with access to its own system:

• "Turn on Wi-Fi hotspot"
• "Take a screenshot and share it with Sam"
• "Turn on dark mode at sunset"
• "Open the camera in Pro mode"
• "Read my last message"

Multi-step commands touching Samsung apps and settings work notably better in Bixby than in general-purpose assistants.

Where it is weaker

General knowledge and web search. Ask Bixby a factual question and it is generally behind Google Assistant and Gemini. That is the main reason most people default to Google's assistant.

Bixby versus Google Assistant and Gemini

You can run both. Many people set Google's assistant as the default for the power button and voice queries, and keep Bixby Routines active in the background for automation.

Bixby Routines: the part worth keeping

Even if you never speak to Bixby, Bixby Routines is a genuinely capable automation engine — and arguably the best reason Bixby exists.

Settings › Modes and Routines › Routines.

Set conditions and actions, such as:

• When connected to the car's Bluetooth, open the maps app and raise the media volume.
• When battery drops below 20%, turn on power saving and reduce screen refresh rate.
• When Wi-Fi connects to the office network, silence the ringer.
• Between 11pm and 7am, enable dark mode and greyscale.
• When a specific app opens, block notifications and lock screen rotation.

This runs without any voice interaction at all, and it is more capable than most third-party automation apps.

Remap the power button away from Bixby

On phones where a long press summons Bixby:

Settings › Advanced features › Side button — set Press and hold to Power off menu or Wake Bixby as you prefer.

Many people set press-and-hold to the power menu and use a double-press for the camera. On stock Android the equivalent is Settings › System › Gestures › Press and hold power button.

Turn Bixby off

You cannot fully uninstall it, but you can stop it appearing:

1. Disable voice wake-up — Bixby › ⋮ Settings › Voice wake-up → off. This stops "Hi Bixby" from listening.
2. Remap the side button as above.
3. Remove Bixby Home / Bixby Today — long-press an empty area of the home screen, swipe to the leftmost panel and toggle it off.
4. Disable the apps — Settings › Apps › ⋮ Show system apps, then open Bixby Voice, Bixby Vision and Bixby Home and tap Disable where offered.

Disabling Bixby Voice may also disable Bixby Routines, since they share components. If you use Routines, disable only voice wake-up and leave the rest alone.

Set Google as your default assistant

Settings › Apps › Choose default apps › Digital assistant app → select Google.

This changes what the assistant gesture and button summon. Bixby remains installed but stops being the default.

Bixby Vision

Samsung's camera-based recognition — text extraction, translation, QR codes and product lookup. Samsung has scaled it back on newer models, and Google Lens is now the more capable option for most of these tasks. See scanning QR codes on a Samsung phone.

Is Bixby being discontinued?

Samsung has continued developing Bixby while simultaneously deepening its Google partnership, with Gemini available on recent Galaxy phones. The practical position: Bixby persists for device control, appliances and Routines, while Google's assistant handles general queries. Samsung has not announced its retirement.

In short

Bixby is Samsung's assistant — good at controlling your phone, weak at answering questions. The most valuable part is Bixby Routines for automation, which works without ever speaking to it. Turn off voice wake-up and remap the side button if it gets in your way, and set Google as your default assistant if you prefer it.

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