Samsung's human-faced AI chatbot called NEON, developed by its subsidiary STAR Labs, won't be coming to any phones in the near future Galaxy, i.e. not even the models of the new flagship series Galaxy S21. Her boss himself confirmed it.
NEON's AI technology was first introduced at CES 2020 earlier this year and raised more questions than answers. It came to the fore again only last month, when STAR Labs chief Pranav Mistry said on Twitter that a test version of it was now running on his smartphone and that Samsung would show it to the public before Christmas. Soon after, there were speculations that the first device to boast a virtual assistant in human form could be the next flagship phones Galaxy S21. However, after the new announcement, it is clear that these speculations were odd.
You could be interested in
Pranav later added that NEON is "an independent service that is under development and will be launched in 2021". He added that it is "currently only available for the B2B segment, via the View API and NEON Frame".
According to previous announcements, the technology could be used by companies to create AI-based interactive experiences for consumers. These avatars could exist as backup news anchors, but also as comic book characters generated by artificial intelligence, for example. Consumers should then be able to interact with these avatars via smartphones, possibly from the cloud or by connecting to a service.
I've been interested in Neon since the first article in 2019 and I feel like I'll never get to see it.