Samsung acquires Viv, AI startup founded by Siri creators

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Samsung is all out to join the artificial intelligence (AI) race as the South Korean giant has agreed to acquire Viv Labs, the startup behind Viv an AI assistant system which is “radically simplifying the world by providing an intelligent interface to everything.” Interestingly, Viv was co-founded by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham, the creators of Apple’s Siri. The trio founded Viv in 2012, which is an intelligent assistant and an open platform wherein any developer can add more knowledge and capabilities to it. Viv was unveiled at Disrupt NY tech conference in New York back in May.

The news about Samsung acquiring Viv Labs was confirmed by TechCrunch, and also through a blog post by Kittlaus. As of now, there is no word on the pricing of the deal. Viv will not be exclusive to Samsung as it will continue to operate as an independent company and provide services to Samsung and other platforms as well. As mentioned in the blog post, Kittlaus explains how Samsung will be a big gain for their platform as well citing how big the company is in terms of not just smartphones, but TVs and other appliances as well. He says, “Their product mix naturally fits Viv’s “simplify your interactions through conversation.”

As reported by The Telegraph , Viv works almost the same way as Siri does but its program is more advanced. Kittlaus said that four transactions were completed in about two minutes just by talking. The transactions were made for booking a hotel room, ordering flowers and booking an Uber. Viv Labs has also partnered with 50 companies which include the likes of Uber, GrubHub and SeatGuru to make Viv more efficient. Viv is also not limited to just working on a smartphone as the company said that it would work on a car, TV and laptop as well. Kittlaus further demonstrated by asking the question, “Will it be warmer than 70 degrees Fahrenheit near the Golden Gate Bridge after 5PM on the day after tomorrow?” The answer by Viv came within 10 milliseconds.

Once launched, Viv will go head-to-head with existing virtual assistants like Apple ’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant. But Viv aims to take the smart and conversational relationship and make it even more personal so as to help in the best way with its services. What makes Viv stand out also is the fact that its AI can write its own codes to respond to commands made while carrying out new tasks. This explains how Viv will understand the user and create programs which will enable it to perform actions quicker and more efficiently.

With Samsung’s acquisition of Viv Labs, and the fact that the intelligent assistant works on various platforms, we could be seeing Viv on future Samsung smartphones, TVs and other appliances as well.
 
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