Viv is a new AI app from Siri's creators (pictures)

The first public demo of Viv, a new voice-recognition AI app, as seen at TechCrunch NY 2016, in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Dan Ackerman

Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times

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Dan Ackerman

May 9, 2016 12:36 p.m. PT

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Dag Kittlaus was one of the creators of Siri, the AI assistant in Apple's iOS devices. His new creation is called Viv, and you can read more about Viv here.

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This week's TechCrunch Distrupt event in New York offered the first-ever public demo of Viv.

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The software connects to a laundry list of services, from hotel booking companies to weather reports to restaurant services.

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The idea behind Viv is to have a personal digital assistant that understands natural language and that can run requests through multiple third-party services.

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One goal is to book hotel rooms, order food or perform other tasks with no user interaction required beyond issuing voice commands.

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Questions like, "Will it be warmer than 70 degrees near the Golden Gate Bridge after 5 p.m. the day after tomorrow?" would stump Siri or Alexa, because of the complexity of the question.