API.AI

Api.ai
Formerly called
 Speaktoit
Subsidiary
Industry Natural language user interface
Founded Arlington, Virginia, US (2010)
Headquarters Palo Alto, California, US
Key people
 Ilya Gelfenbeyn, CEO
Artem Goncharuk, CTO
Pavel Sirotin, VP Knowledge and Interaction Design
Products Api.ai, Assistant
Parent Google
Website api.ai

Api.ai (formerly Speaktoit) is a developer of human–computer interaction technologies based on natural language conversations. The company is best known for creating the Assistant (by Speaktoit), a virtual buddy for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone smartphones that performs tasks and answers users' question in a natural language.[1] Speaktoit has also created a natural language processing engine that incorporates conversation context like dialogue history, location and user preferences.

In May 2012, Speaktoit received a venture round (funding terms undisclosed) from Intel Capital.[2] In July 2014, Speaktoit closed their Series B funding led by Motorola Solutions Venture Capital with participation from new investor Plug and Play Ventures and existing backers Intel Capital and Alpine Technology Fund.[3]

In September 2014, Speaktoit released api.ai (the voice-enabling engine that powers Assistant) to third-party developers, allowing the addition of voice interfaces to apps based on Android, iOS, HTML5, and Cordova.[4][5] The SDK's contain voice recognition, natural language understanding, and text-to-speech. api.ai offers a web interface to build and test conversation scenarios. The platform is based on the natural language processing engine built by Speaktoit for its Assistant application.[4] Api.ai allows Internet of Things developers to include natural language voice interfaces in their products.[6] Assistant and Speaktoit's websites now redirect to api.ai's website.

Google bought the company in September 2016[7] and it is now known as API.AI; it provides tools to developers building apps ("Actions") for the Google Assistant virtual assistant.[8]

The organization discontinued the Assistant app on December 15, 2016.

References

  1. ↑ "The Digital Personal Assistant Problem Siri Still Hasn't Solved". Fast Company. 8 August 2012. Retrieved 24 October 2012.
  2. ↑ "Speaktoit Secures Funding From Intel". Bloomberg. 25 May 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2012.
  3. ↑ "Speaktoit Scores $2.6M to Put Virtual Assistant Into Cars, Robots and Wearables". The Wall Street Journal. 18 July 2014. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  4. 1 2 Wierema, Sam (16 September 2014). "Build your own Siri: Api.ai offers voice integration for all". The Next Web.
  5. ↑ "api.ai Documentation".
  6. ↑ Tolentino, Mellisa (19 September 2014). "New platforms, upgrades simplify life for IoT developers". Silicon Angle.
  7. ↑ https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/19/google-acquires-api-ai-a-company-helping-developers-build-bots-that-arent-awful-to-talk-to/
  8. ↑ api.ai

Further reading

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