Samsung rockets into AI fast lane with Viv purchase
SAN FRANCISCO — Samsung Electronics just accelerated into the voice-assistant fast lane.
The South Korean electronics company, which has been grappling with extended fallout from its recalled Galaxy Note 7, announced Wednesday that it was buying Viv, the machine-learning virtual assistant company started by Siri founder Dag Kittlaus.
By writing a check for an undisclosed sum, Samsung instantly joins Apple (Siri), Amazon (Alexa), Microsoft (Cortana) and Google (Google Assistant) in being able to provide consumers with a even smarter smartphone. And more.
"Viv brings a conversational interface that we can apply across our devices," Jacopo Lenzi tells USA TODAY. Lenzi is senior vice president of business development and strategic acquisitions at Samsung Global Innovation Center, the division that spearheaded the Viv purchase.
"While we're not talking about our product roadmap just yet, this acquisition is led out of mobile group, so we'll first map onto those devices and then move on to appliances and TV," he says.
Lenzi says Viv should power a Samsung smartphone sometime next year. On Tuesday, Google unveiled its new Pixel smartphones, which will be powered by the Alphabet company's Google Assistant.
Siri's inventor looks forward to Viv, 'a giant brain in the sky'
Viv's open platform has been accessible to developers for some time but the service has yet to make a public debut.
Kittlaus, who co-founded Viv with Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham, has been making the rounds this year talking about his effort to one-up Siri at tech events such as South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, and TechCrunch Disrupt in New York.
An example of a complex question Viv can handle is, “Will it be warmer than 70-degrees near the Golden Gate Bridge after 5PM on the day after tomorrow?”
Where interactions with many of today's virtual assistants still requires users to dumb down their requests into somewhat robotic language, the AI goal is natural language interaction with a virtual assistant that can process layered requests and remember contextual user details.
Kittlaus says he and his team of 30 engineers at Viv Labs in San Jose were not looking to be acquired, but they were interested in making a big impact. The team will work as an independent subsidiary of Samsung.
"Our goal was always getting ubiquity. We weren’t hunting for (a buyer), but it became clear that our visions aligned with Samsung, and we liked the incredible scale they bring," says Kittlaus. "They represent a truly massive distribution channel for the idea" of sophisticated AI.
Samsung has 22% of the global smartphone market, followed by Apple (11%) and China's Huawei (9%), according to IDC. Samsung's products include mobile devices (phones, tablets), computers and laptops, TV and audio equipment and a broad range of domestic appliances.
Samsung's latest phone, the Galaxy Note 7, bowed to great reviews but quickly developed a reputation for batteries that would overheat and explode, prompting a global recall. Issues with some of its washing machines self-destructing mid-spin led to "active discussions" with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission over possible safety risk.
The outlook for Samsung's Galaxy problems darkened Wednesday, when a flier on Southwest Airlines reported his replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 began popping and smoking in flight, prompting the plane to evacuate. Samsung couldn't confirm that it was one of the newer Galaxy Note 7s.
Smarter smartphones come with a less fiery, but possibly knottier host of associated issues: how to balance consumer privacy with the artificial intelligence's voracious need for more data.
Hacked devices could be disabled, or user information could be used to glean details about a homeowner's personal life. While Viv should provide Samsung consumers with ease of use, it won't do so at the expense of their safety, says Kittlaus.
Samsung battery bust shows pressure of innovation
"Clearly, the privacy issue as it pertains to (virtual) assistants is an important one, we’ve had good discussions and we’re on the same page (with Samsung) on how we will handle all this," he says.
Adds Injong Rhee, CTO of Samsung's mobile communications business: "Samsung has been investing in data privacy technology for more than five years. It is hard to hack into our hardware."
For Viv and Samsung, the future will be all about having machines effortlessly take on some of our more tedious tasks, from making a restaurant reservation to buying movie tickets. The aim is high: say what you want, and the machine will get it.
"Certainly Viv's mission is more natural interaction versus the other experiences that are out there today, but the biggest difference is the scale, the number of capabilities," Kittlaus says. "Any developer in the world can go in and teach Viv to do something new. We'll go from being able to ask it to do a few dozen things, to tens of thousands of things."
Follow USA TODAY tech reporter Marco della Cava @marcodellacava.