The document discusses the rise of intelligent virtual assistants created by major technology companies to compete with Siri. It outlines how the "big five" companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple) are working to develop more intelligent assistants that can be integrated with their messaging apps to gain large user bases. Each assistant is compared based on its intended audience, level of proficiency, notable features, appearance, and release date. The top messaging apps are also overviewed based on metrics like monthly active users and key features.

1. Rise of the
Intelligent Assistants
A quick comparison of virtual assistants and their associated messenger appsphoto: “Cortana” from Halo 5
Nov 2016

2. Siri And The Big Five
The launch of Siri started a new race amongst
the big five. The race to have the most
intelligent virtual assistant to compete with, and
to surpass Siri in every aspect.
The race is not just to build a talking search
engine or virtual assistant. But to build an
ubiquitous natural language interface. It is fast
becoming one of the hottest and most lucrative
fields in the software industry. Truly a disruptive
technology in the making.
Being a highly complex field, so far the progress
certainly hasn’t been in leaps and bounds.
Information given in these slides has been extracted from a study conducted by Elanist
for a product related to Intelligent Assistants. The study was conducted in Jul 2016.info@elanist.com

3. More Than A Messenger
All of the big five are certainly very
far from achieving the level of the
amazing AI based girl Cortana of
the equally amazing video game
Halo (Microsoft’s virtual assistant is
named after her). The primary
problem being; none of the virtual
assistants have much intelligence.
But with whatever they’ve
managed to build so far, each of
the big five is eagerly working on a
strategy to integrate their existing
messaging apps to immediately
gain access to a vast userbase.
Each messenger app already has
several hundreds million active
users. Once strategically inegrated,
these intelligent assistants will
eventually become the most
effective tools for everything from
automated customer care, to
virtual sales assistants and most
importantly; to understand their
customers much more intimately.
Placeyourscreenshot
here
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4. The Players
Virtual Friends
CogniToys (children’s educational toy)
Virtual Assistants
Microsoft Cortana
Amazon Alexa
Google Now
Facebook Messenger bots
Viv (successor of Siri)
Hound
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5. Virtual Assistant Comparison
S ystem A u d ience P r of iciency O t her H i g h lights A p p earance R e lea se
CogniToys 5-9 years age
Entertain & Educate
Children
Educational, Learns Plastic Toy Apr 2016
Siri Adults Basic Productivity Humor Text + Apps Results Oct 2011
Viv (new Siri) Adults Complex Queries Bookings, Purchases Text + Apps Results Beta
Hound Adults Basic Productivity Complex Queries Text + Apps Results Mar 2016
MS Cortana Adults Scheduling, Commute Messenger, Business Bots Text + Apps Results Apr 2014
Google Now Adults Travel/Commute Searches Text + Apps Results Jul 2012
Amazon Alexa Adults Productivity, Music Reads, Purchases Desktop Speaker Nov 2014
Facebook M Adults Productivity Messenger, Business Bots Text Options Development
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6. The Messengers - Overview
M e ssenger A p p s M A U*
C a ll
C r edits
e C ommerce
M i sc. I n A p p
P u rchases
C ha t
B o ts
A n onymity A P Is R e lea se
WhatsApp 1 billion X X X - X X Jan 2010
FB Messenger 900m X B-C X Aug 2011
WeChat 760m X - X Jan 2011
Hangouts 500m X - X May 2013
Skype 300m X B-C X Aug 2003
Viber 250m X - X Dec 2010
Kik 250m X B-C Oct 2010
LINE 220m - X Mar 2011
BBM 200m X X - X Aug 2005
* Q1 2016 figures
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