It's true that Bixby didn't have the most auspicious of debuts when it rolled out on the Galaxy S8 earlier this year, but Samsung's clearly got big plans for its smart assistant. Late last year, the company picked up Viv, the new assistant from the folks behind Siri -- an acquisition that occurred too late to have a major impact on Bixby ahead of release. The consumer electronics giant is at it again, picking up fellow South Korean company, Fluenty -- news first noted by The Korea Herald.

Samsung has been conspicuously silent as other big platforms like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have made announcement after announcement about artificial intelligence and voice-based personal assistants this year. That seems to have changed with the big news today that Samsung has acquired Viv Labs, the AI firm run by the same people who created Apple's personal digital assistant, Siri. Viv has created a voice-based digital assistant that can guide a user through a conversation that leads to a purchase. The assistant can actually make the purchase without requiring the user to go out to an app to close the deal. Viv may be unique in the field of virtual assistants for having done the legwork of connecting the assistant with retailers and product information in the background.