Samsung announced that it purchased Viv Labs, an AI-based startup founded by the creators of Siri. Financial terms of the deal weren’t made public, but the founders of Viv Labs will work with Samsung’s Mobile Communications business.
Samsung will offer the creators of Viv Labs the opportunity to operate independently under the existing leadership at the company. Samsung intends to deliver an AI-based open ecosystem across devices and services.
The company hopes Viv Labs would help simplify user interface and offer appropriate and convenient recommendations. Viv Labs has developed a unique AI platform that allows developers to use and build conversational assistants into applications and services.
Samsung and Vis’s new AI project will compete against Google Now
CTO of the Mobile Communications business at Samsung Electronics said “Unlike other existing AI-based services, Viv has a sophisticated natural language understanding, machine learning capabilities and strategic partnerships that will enrich a broader service ecosystem.”
He added that Viv is a perfect fit for Samsung because it focuses both on consumers and developers. The company intends to integrate Viv technology into Samsung home appliances, wearables and more product categories.
“Samsung offers us a unique opportunity to deliver a single conversational interface to the world’s apps and services across a diverse range of products, at global scale,” said said Viv co-founder and CEO, Dag Kittlaus.
Viv and Samsung’s new AI projects will directly compete against Siri, Cortana and Google Now. In iOS 10, Siri received access to third party developers in order to allow users to place orders using this tool. However, Google recently showcased its AI-based personal assistant platform, Google Assistant.
The technology is found on the newly released Pixel smartphones and Google Home. Google Assistant has many similar features to Google Now and the company even announced a new bot ecosystem for Assistant. The platform will be released in early December and a SDK will be made available next year.
