“Siri, replace yourself with Viv.”

For the last four years the creators of Siri have been working on a next generation AI called Viv:

The major difference between Siri and Viv is that the latter is a far more open platform. One of the biggest frustrations with Siri is that it has only a small number of tasks it can complete. For the vast multitude of requests or queries, Siri will default to a generic web search. Viv’s approach is much closer to Amazon’s Alexa or Facebook’s Messenger bots, offering the ability to connect with third party merchants and vendors so that it can execute on requests to purchase good or book reservations. The company’s tagline — intelligence becomes a utility — nicely sums up its goal of powering the conversational AI inside a multitude of gadgets and digital services.

Sounds awesome. I wonder if Apple will just buy Viv like they did Siri or if they’re going to be take Siri to the next level on their own.

There were negative reviews of Amazon’s Alexa when it came out but more and more I’m hearing positive experiences with it (from Apple nerds too).

Update: Here’s a video of Viv in action from TechCrunch Disrupt