Viv AI voice assistant heading to Samsung devices following buy-out

Samsung has bought Viv Labs, an AI startup that developed a voice assistant capable of responding to natural language, marking a clear step forward in the firm's artificial intelligence strategy.

According to Injong Rhee, CTO of Samsung's mobile communications business, the tech giant's aim is to offer customers the best user experience across all its products and in all situations. Beyond boosting the brand's upcoming smartphones, the Viv acquisition could potentially bring AI technology to all the South Korean tech firm's products (TVs, fridges, etc.). With Viv's technology, Samsung hopes to offer to its users a simplified and intelligent interface, and an AI-based virtual assistant that understands the user's context and offers the most appropriate and convenient suggestions and recommendations.

Samsung's strategy echoes the recent announcements made by Google, whose freshly unveiled Pixel smartphones are the first to come with its new virtual assistant. This is much more advanced than Google Now, and can analyse elements displayed onscreen or in the device history to anticipate certain actions or requests.

Artificial intelligence is one of the major fields of development in tech world. In this respect, Viv stands out from the competition as an open ecosystem that doesn't just offer preprogrammed replies. Instead, it writes them itself, as it goes along, and is capable of responding to questions formulated in natural language. According to its creators, Viv can, for example, answer a complex question with several elements, such as: "Will it be warmer than 70 degrees near Golden Gate Bridge after 5PM the day after tomorrow?" The assistant corroborates a multitude of contextual information from the Internet to formulate the most intelligible and accurate reply possible. Viv even writes its own code, evolving each time it answers new questions, whereas other voice assistants simply search for readymade answers. In fact, Viv promises to constantly hone its relevancy over time.

Viv stands apart from other current voice assistants, which, as yet, are much more limited in their abilities. Current rivals include Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana and Amazon's Echo. Ironically, Viv Labs was co-founded by Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, who previously helped create Siri, which became Apple's voice assistant and a key rival for Samsung. — AFP Relaxnews