Meet Viv, the next AI personal assistant from the creators of Siri
Well, it looks like Siri has just met her biggest competitor -- Viv, a new artificial intelligence assistant that aims to outdo the popular Apple iOS "voice." At the TechCrunch Disrupt event in Brooklyn on Monday, Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, Siri's co-creators, gave the first public demo of Viv.
During the demo, the team showed Viv communicating with a computer as well as a phone, doing the same kind of question-and-answer tasks that Siri would normally perform. But it also answered more complicated questions like "Will it be warmer than 70 degrees near the Golden Gate Bridge after 5 p.m. the day after tomorrow?" CNET reports.
Kittlaus and Cheyer, who introduced the world to the more advanced natural language processing capabilities of an AI system with Siri, had been developing Viv pretty under the radar for the past four years, the Verge reports.
Part of what makes Viv stand out is the fact that it can connect to third-party vendors and services and perform tasks like booking a reservation. The goal is to make Viv the all-around digital helper that can do everything Siri can and then some.
At the demo, Kittlaus ordered flowers and sent money through Venmo by using Viv, according to CNET. Kittlaus believes that Viv's ability to streamline tasks like this will make individual apps unnecessary.
At least that's the goal for this startup -- to be the utility player that other AI assistants promise to be, but can't quite deliver.
"When it understands intent of user, it generates a program as needed," Kittlaus said.
Adam Koopersmith, a partner with Pritzker Group Venture Capital, a Viv investor, echoed those sentiments, according to the Verge.
"Viv is designed to be devices agnostic -- think one platform, open to all services, for all devices, personalized for you," Koopersmith said. "Viv's goal is to be ubiquitous so it will understand your preferences and history as you engage with it on your mobile device, or in your car, or with your smart device at home."
The demo generated mild applause, CNET reports.
On its website Viv said that the service will be "coming soon to devices near you," but there is no official launch date listed.