Samsung has announced via a press release that they’ve agreed to acquire AI startup Viv Labs, a company founded by the creators of Apple’s personal assistant Siri. This move will open the door for more serious artificial intelligence progression under Samsung’s roof to take place and ultimately build onto the strength’s of the company.
Back in May, we first shared with you the latest creation from developers Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, the minds behind not only Viv but also Siri. At an event a few days later, the duo showed off Viv to thousands of people which they claim is what they wanted Siri to ultimately become. However, thanks to Apple basically “dumbing it down” for the typical user, Kittlaus and Cheyer weren’t able to complete their goal. Hence, they’ve built Viv with advanced capabilities that ultimately surpass those found in Siri, Cortana, and even the Google Assistant. Here’s a snippet from one of our previous articles on how Viv can work for you.
Viv is […] more complex than Siri. It has capabilities only Apple’s AI bot could dream of. For example, ordering a pizza with multiple questions in the statement asked can return an intelligent response to the user and complete the request, all without ever typing anything in or downloading a third-party app.
“Get me a pizza from Pizz’a Chicago near my office,” one of the engineers said into his smartphone. It was their first real test of Viv, the artificial-intelligence technology that the team had been quietly building for more than year. Everyone was a little nervous. Then, a text from Viv piped up: “Would you like toppings with that?”
The engineers, eight in all, started jumping in: “Pepperoni.” “Half cheese.” “Caesar salad.” Emboldened by the result, they peppered Viv with more commands: Add more toppings. Remove toppings. Change medium size to large.
About 40 minutes later — and after a few hiccups when Viv confused the office address — a Pizz’a Chicago driver showed up with four made-to-order pizzas.
By integrating closely with third-party apps, Viv can accomplish more than Siri ever has been able to. A total of 50 apps offer functionality to Viv […] like SeatGuru, Zocdoc, Grubhub, FTD, and Ivee.
Using advanced machine learning and natural language capabilities, Viv offers users a much more capable experience when compared to other AI bots. Two way conversations are possible, while integration with basically any third-part app is granted. And to make them seem more into AI than before, this is the reason why Samsung decided to ultimately acquire Viv.
The deal showcases Samsung’s commitment to virtual personal assistants and is part of the company’s broader vision to deliver an AI-based open ecosystem across all of its devices and services. With Viv, Samsung will be able to unlock and offer new service experiences for its customers, including one that simplifies user interfaces, understands the context of the user and offers the user the most appropriate and convenient suggestions and recommendations.
It’s worth noting that both Facebook and Google expressed interest in acquiring Viv, however neither of them could come to a decent negotiation as nothing resulted whatsoever.
So what will you, the consumer, see by ways of this acquisition? Well, at least in theory, expect more extensive AI capabilities on Samsung’s future devices that may or may not come with Viv preinstalled. In addition, Samsung may express interest in building further on their S Voice platform by integrating the technology available via Viv and hopefully, one day, absolutely clobber Apple and Google alike in the race for the best personal assistant on the market.
It’s unclear just how much Viv will cost Samsung, but Apple paid about $200M for Siri back in 2010, so the Koran company may have to pay somewhere around that amount.
If you wanna learn more about Viv, check out the video below.
- SOURCE: Samsung
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