Samsung Electronics has named the new chief of Samsung Research America who will lead the Korean tech giant’s software development, especially the upgraded version of its artificial intelligence assistant Bixby in English service, according to a source familiar with the matter on Monday.

“Lee Joon-hyun, a senior vice president in charge of voice recognition module development at the Seoul-based Digital Media & Communications R&D Center, was recently nominated to head Samsung Research America,” the source told The Korea Herald on condition of anonymity.


The top post has been vacant since Kim Yong-jae, former US research chief, was recently relocated to Korea to head software research at the mobile business division.

Samsung declined to offer detailed career information about Lee but the source said the urgent mission for him is expected to be upgrading the current Bixby, Samsung’s first AI assistant that has received lukewarm reviews among Galaxy users since its launch in July this year.

Market tracker Strategic Analytics predicts Bixby’s market share could plunge from 12.7 percent this year to 5.4 percent by 2022.

In the meantime, Samsung last week created a new AI research center under Samsung Research that combined the existing two software research centers -- the DMC R&D Center and Software Center.

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)