For effective communication, artificial intelligent (AI) assistants need to be able to dialogue naturally, instead of the current state of just responding to commands, that's what “conversational AI” hopes to achieve.

Microsoft Research has recorded breakthroughs in the fundamental building blocks of conversational AI, like speech recognition and natural language understanding, which goal has been to expand the vision of computers to a state where they could see, hear talk and understand as humans.

While AI researchers have made great strides in recent years, but teaching computers to understand the full context of human communication is still in its infancy.

Microsoft in its bid to stem the tide, has acquired Semantic Machines Inc., a California-based company that has revolutionized a new approach to building conversational AI, while using the power of machine learning to enable users to discover, access and interact with information and services in a much more natural way, and with less effort.

The acquisition of Semantic Machines, will help Microsoft to push forward to the boundaries of what is possible in natural language interfaces.

And thus, further expand in conversational AI with its digital assistant Cortana, as well as with social chatbots like XiaoIce, which has had more than 30 billion conversations, averaging up to 30 minutes each, with 200 million users across platforms in China, Japan, the United States, India and Indonesia.

Microsoft Cognitive Services and Azure Bot Service will also benefit; and the combination of Semantic Machines’ technology and Microsoft’s AI advances, will ensure more productive user experiences that will take conversational AI computing to the next level.

Microsoft's roadmap to advance the state of conversational AI



For effective communication, artificial intelligent (AI) assistants need to be able to dialogue naturally, instead of the current state of just responding to commands, that's what “conversational AI” hopes to achieve.

Microsoft Research has recorded breakthroughs in the fundamental building blocks of conversational AI, like speech recognition and natural language understanding, which goal has been to expand the vision of computers to a state where they could see, hear talk and understand as humans.

While AI researchers have made great strides in recent years, but teaching computers to understand the full context of human communication is still in its infancy.

Microsoft in its bid to stem the tide, has acquired Semantic Machines Inc., a California-based company that has revolutionized a new approach to building conversational AI, while using the power of machine learning to enable users to discover, access and interact with information and services in a much more natural way, and with less effort.

The acquisition of Semantic Machines, will help Microsoft to push forward to the boundaries of what is possible in natural language interfaces.

And thus, further expand in conversational AI with its digital assistant Cortana, as well as with social chatbots like XiaoIce, which has had more than 30 billion conversations, averaging up to 30 minutes each, with 200 million users across platforms in China, Japan, the United States, India and Indonesia.

Microsoft Cognitive Services and Azure Bot Service will also benefit; and the combination of Semantic Machines’ technology and Microsoft’s AI advances, will ensure more productive user experiences that will take conversational AI computing to the next level.

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