Samsung just teamed up with the makers of Siri to compete with Siri
The digital assistant technology race is heating up, with Samsung announcing plans to acquire the open artificial intelligence platform Viv on Wednesday.
It's an intriguing move, not least because it means the team who created Apple's voice-powered assistant Siri is forming closer ties with the South Korean electronics giant.
As an intelligent interface that can interact with a range of devices, Viv is "an ideal candidate" to integrate with Samsung home appliances and wearables, Injong Rhee, CTO of Samsung Electronics, said in a statement. Samsung makes a whole range of home appliances, so the acquisition suggests the company is keen to have them interacting with customers in the future.
You May Also Like
Viv will remain an independent subsidiary of Samsung. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
After selling Siri to Apple in 2010, Viv creators Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham left and formed their own company in 2012. "I believe that when our kids are our age, they will ask us in amazement how we got along without having a virtual assistant to delegate the menial tasks of our life to," Kittlaus wrote at the time.
In May, Viv Labs showcased its new AI-powered assistant app Viv, the "intelligent interface to everything," at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York.
The AI was able to grapple with complex demands on-stage, and Kittlaus explained "dynamic program generation" was the engine behind its abilities. To put it simply, as Mashable explained, Viv could write itself new code in "less than a second," meaning it was able to grow and learn quickly.
"Unlike other existing AI-based services, Viv has a sophisticated natural language understanding, machine learning capabilities and strategic partnerships that will enrich a broader service ecosystem," Rhee said Wednesday.
Facebook and Google were rumoured to be interested in the technology, but it looks like Samsung won out.
Most major technology companies are hoping to strengthen their voice assistant technologies, even bringing them from mobile to the desktop, as Microsoft did with Cortana and Apple with Siri. Google Assistant, which powers the new Google Home, is another major competitor.
In a post on Medium, Kittlaus explained the thinking behind the move.
In his view, trusted voice assistants will soon play a significant role in completing daily tasks in everyday life. "This will be the third true paradigm of the Internet age, a world decidedly 'beyond the app,'" he wrote.
Kittlaus explained the company chose to partner with Samsung to "drastically accelerate" the ubiquity of its technology.
Ariel Bogle was an associate editor with Mashable in Australia covering technology. Previously, Ariel was associate editor at Future Tense in Washington DC, an editorial initiative between Slate and New America.
