Creators of Apple Siri are working on the next generation virtual assistant
Siri’s creators Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Tom Gruber are currently working on “Viv”, a new virtual assistant, described by Oren Etzioni, a renowned AI expert as “the future of intelligent agents and a multibillion-dollar industry”.
The original team behind Siri’s algorithm have founded Viv Labs, a stealth startup headquartered in San Jose, California, where Viv is being developed.
Kittlaus and his team hold high hopes for their new creation, as they describe Viv as a radically different concept, very far from Apple Siri, Google Now, or Microsoft Cortana.
The best virtual assistants available can only go so far as to answer direct questions, and lack significantly in the ability to associate independent queries. For instance, one could ask Siri “Give me a flight to Dallas with a seat that Shaq could fit in”. Siri is likely to disregard the last half of such request, and simply return a link to the nearest airport, or to a travel website.
Viv on the other hand will cross-reference information related to flights available, taking into account third party information sources, including the NBA Media Guide, and return seat availability on flights to Dallas, with plenty of legroom.
Tech giants have already been investing in Artificial Intelligence, such as Google, recently acquiring UK-based DeepMind, for half a billion dollars, as well as hiring deep-learning pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and Ray Kurzweil. Deep learning is very much Viv’s working principle, at the base of what Viv Labs wants to achieve: a system able to predict a user’s desires, prior to being asked.
Will Viv replace Siri or Google Now? Not according to Viv Labs, as Kittlaus elaborates on the future of Viv, the key market feature will be its ubiquity, the ability to be everywhere, a platform independence that will allow it to collaborate with every service and every data source, to provide access to massive amounts of data that Viv will need to process at staggering speeds.
In its creators eye, Viv is destined to become a utility service, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or wireless charging, and always be ready to tend to users requests according to three “pillars” set forth by Viv Labs:
- It will be taught by the world
- It will know more than it is taught
- It will learn something every day
Viv’s ubiquity will open it to licensing possibilities, where TV providers, car manufacturers and makers of wearable technology will have an interest in integrating the technology.
Of course, Viv is still in its infancy, but given the history and portfolio of its creators, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback from some of the third-parties invited to see the early demo, it seems that Viv Labs has very good chances at achieving its goal.
The significance of a product like Viv becomes even greater, as Apple shows signs of wanting to invest more into desktop integration of Siri, a clear indication that virtual assistants will be ever more present across more facets of technology in the next decades.