Viv Labs, an artificial intelligence startup founded by the creators of Siri, has caught Samsung's attention. The Korean giant confirmed today that it has agreed to acquire Viv Labs. The founding team of Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham will work closely with Samsung's Mobile Communications business but they will be able to operate independently under the existing leadership. No financial terms of the deal were revealed.
The startup has developed a unique, open artificial intelligence platform which enables third-party developers to use and build conversational assistants much like Siri. The platform also enables developers to integrate a natural language-based interface in apps and services.
“The deal showcases Samsung’s commitment to virtual personal assistants,” the company says in its press release, adding that this move is part of its broader vision to provide an AI-based open ecosystem across all of its devices and services. Viv will allow Samsung to offer new experiences to its customers, one that simplifies user interfaces, understands the context of the user and offers them the most appropriate and convenient recommendations.
“Viv was built with both consumers and developers in mind. This dual focus is also what attracted us to Viv as an ideal candidate to integrate with Samsung home appliances, wearables and more, as the paradigm of how we interact with technology shifts to intelligent interfaces and voice control,” said Injong Rhee, CTO of the Mobile Communications business at Samsung Electronics. We can expect to see features and services powered by the Vive platform in Samsung devices by the second half of 2017.
