Meet Xiaomi's intelligent assistant

For the moment, Xiao AI only works on the Mi Mix 2s. — AFP Relaxnews

With a video posted on the Internet, the Chinese smartphone producer has unveiled a new intelligent smartphone assistant, Xiao Ai, which is similar to Google Assistant and Siri.

Like other assistants, Xiao Ai enables users to issue vocal commands to applications on the smartphone, access contextualised data, and control automated home appliances (produced by Xiaomi). Xiaomi is not the first smartphone producer to develop its own assistant as an alternative to Google. Samsung has already attempted to do just that, although without much success, with Bixby, its relatively limited assistant, which, for the moment, is only available in Korean, Chinese and English.

Not surprisingly, for the moment Xaio AI only understands Chinese. Quite logical when you consider that the brand is barely distributed anywhere outside of China. Another limitation is that the assistant can only be accessed on the Mi Mix 2s, the brand's new high-end flagship. However, a promised update to Xiaomi's MIUI Android firmware is expected to extend the functionality to other models, which in the meantime can still run Google Assistant.

Let's not forget that at the beginning of this year, Xiaomi also launched a smart speaker, Yeelight, in collaboration with Microsoft, which integrated the Redmond giant's Cortana assistant.