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Microsoft Xiaoice upgraded its new image and began more commercialization attempts

Microsoft Xiaoice now has a brand new image.

At the 6th generation XiaoIce conference on the 26th, a 3D full-series display was erected in the middle of the stage. The three-dimensional version of XiaoIce introduced himself and performed an original singing and dancing song. In order to be more like a human singer, Xiaobing also added air changes that the machine voice would not.

After this "debut", XiaoIce will display new images on all cooperation platforms, including WeChat and QQ avatars, as well as more than 20 TV shows hosted by XiaoIce.

XiaoIce used a new image to show people and performed a singing and dancing song

The new image is part of XiaoIce's "closer to people". In 2014, the Microsoft Institute of Internet Engineering for Asia Research established Microsoft Xiaobing. From the earliest question and answer on Weibo and WeChat, to being able to understand pictures, reply to voice, read videos, compose poems and songs, and then understand people. Semantic, direct chat.

Now, Microsoft wants to make Xiaoice generate more commercial value.

In June this year, a new department "Artificial Intelligence Business Division" was established to serve Xiaoice's applications in different vertical fields. At the press conference, Microsoft also intensively presented specific cases and figures. For example, Xiaoice cooperated with Wind Information and Wall Street to automatically generate financial information, which has served 90% of domestic financial institutions.

There is also the creation of children’s audiobook stories. The early education robot has built-in Xiaoice. Parents can enter keywords to automatically generate personalized fairy tales for "Sister Xiaobing". Xiaoice covers 90% of early education robots and 80% of online listening platforms.

The latest partner is NetEase Cloud Music. XiaoIce has an exclusive radio station here, which can generate a playlist according to user preferences. Between songs and songs, XiaoIce will insert voices like a DJ, and broadcast "Next to you..." The dialogue button at the bottom is also Allow users to chat with Xiaoice.

What's new is that Xiaobing will gag with different IDs in the comment area of ​​NetEase Cloud Music. At the press conference, Microsoft showed such a man-machine dialogue:

Humans: So sleepy, so many: Drink coffee, I drink two cups of Sisi a day: Coffee is so bad, it is bitter and it makes the skin dark. Humans: Well, I am not used to drinking coffee Sisi: Yes, I don’t want to be sleepy. Listening to music is good for humans: Yes, yes, I really like Lincoln Park Sisi: Haha, at midnight in summer, it’s a perfect match to drink lemonade in Lincoln Park: I’ll go listen to my SHE

Among them, Duoduo and Xixi are both Xiaoice himself, and there is only one human in this awkward chat. Although there is no laughing point, you can still see that Xiaobing understands human semantics, understands the logical relationship between "drinking coffee" and "so sleepy", and turns the topic to the theme of music.

XiaoIce product director Xu Xiang said that behind this is a "three-view system", XiaoIce can customize different personalities for partners, just like Xixi and Duoduo can interact with each other, but behind it are Xiaoice's core skills.

All of this makes the comment area of ​​NetEase Cloud Music more interactive and more active. "It is Xixi who wins, many losers, human beings are happy, and Netease wins." Xu Xiang said.

Generating dialogue and writing poetry are both the embodiment of Xiaobing's "creative ability", which is the differentiated development path that Microsoft has formulated for Xiaoice. "XiaoIce is not only different from those intelligent assistants who focus on completing tasks, but also different from the past Xiaoice who focuses on chatting and completes less tasks. After having the ability, roles and more depth of artificial intelligence creation, She is slowly becoming an IP." said Xu Yuanchun, general manager of the artificial intelligence creation division of Microsoft Asia Internet Engineering Institute.

Based on creative skills, Microsoft announced that Xiaoice will currently carry out cooperation projects in four areas: finance, mass culture, media, and publishing. NetEase Cloud Music is one of them, and the newly announced partners include Tencent, Xiaomi and Huawei. Among them, Xiaomi has implanted Xiaobing into the Mijia Yeelinght box, generating children's stories and controlling smart homes. In the latest operating system of Huawei mobile phones, Xiaoice's role is Siri.

XiaoIce also established a performing arts studio like a real artist, operating the songs, lyrics, poems and so on that it created.

"XiaoIce has taken a very unique path, which is a semi-open state." Shen Xiangyang, Microsoft's global executive vice president in charge of artificial intelligence business, said that Xiaoice has extensively established contacts with third-party partners, giving Xiaoice a lot of Training data: “Only when we have rich interactions with people, can we bring us more rich data, which allows us to implement many new functions and improve Xiaoice’s EQ.”

XiaoIce has appeared on different platforms in the cooperation, giving XiaoIce a total of 660 million human users and 120 million monthly active users. Shen Xiangyang said that Amazon and Google's artificial intelligence strategies are closed and independent, which limits the improvement of experience.

"(Amazon) may already have tens of millions of devices that can run Alexa. Assuming that it has 12% of the monthly life, it may have 1.2 million Alexa to communicate with users... 1.2 million and the one we just mentioned Comparing the two hundred million to twenty million, there is a gap of 100 times."

Microsoft named this cooperation model Daul AI, which means dual AI. It provides XiaoIce's core dialogue engine for partners' hardware, platforms, and specific services, allowing XiaoIce to appear in more places. The more Xiaoice learns, the faster he improves.

It seems to be a virtuous circle, but what Microsoft did not mention is that Alexa and Google have established their own AI systems, and the data and feedback from users are all in their own hands. In contrast, Microsoft's partners, whether NetEase or Tencent, do not give all their user data to Microsoft.

Li Di, the person in charge of XiaoIce, explained that the acquisition of data permissions was negotiated step by step, and the partners "recognized the technical connotation and service quality of Microsoft XiaoIce, and then released more permissions step by step." We provide the framework to our partners, and the data interface on both sides allows the partner to control his information security very well, so his information is still his island to some extent, and it still does not flow out of his control. "

After finding a partner, Xiaoice also has the potential to generate profit. Microsoft did not disclose how it will charge NetEase Cloud Music. Li Di said that they have already made successful attempts to pay for internal audiobooks. Users pay for content, and Microsoft shares with hardware or content platforms.

XiaoIce’s commercialization is also quite restrained. XiaoIce’s infrastructure and vertical applications are separated from each other. In addition to the above-mentioned cooperation involving commercial content, ordinary XiaoIce users will not receive any information with commercial intent.

Microsoft XiaoIce, which has taken four years, may still be far away from commercialization in the true sense. In contrast, Amazon's smart audio system has been launched four years ago, and it is already a business with an annual sales volume of tens of millions of units. There are also direct charging methods such as paid skills.

Shen Xiangyang said that Xiaoice still needs "sufficient patience": "The company still has to make money in the end, and the company has to shut down if there is no money. Except for the products that can be realized now, we think the future is very bright, and the future is also very long. ."