Microsoft AI Technology Test On Chinese Social Networks Shows Positive Results

Microsoft’s (MSFT) AI program XiaoIce constantly analyzes the user’s emotional state to simulate personal conversations.

XiaoIce combines facts and data in Microsoft’s Bing search engine with recent advances in natural language processing.

XiaoIce has had more than 10 billion conversations with people, most of them about private matters.

XiaoIce is a huge hit in China, and could be a big boost to Microsoft’s efforts in the AI space.

Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) is joining the select club of tech giants at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In a list of predictions published in December, Microsoft Research, the 1,000-strong arm of the company that does scientific research, predicted that AI would be a big trend in 2016 and beyond.

Microsoft recently acquired SwiftKey, maker of a predictive software keyboard powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology that is installed on hundreds of millions of smartphones. The SwiftKey app is more than a simple productivity tool. It features the first neural network language model implemented in a smartphone soft keyboard and uses neural networks to emulate the human brain while processing lots of data to help better suggest upcoming words.

Conversational “chatbot” programs able to intelligently converse with the user are a different but essential, related application of AI technology.

“A visible advance in computational intelligence will be the advent of fluid, multi-step conversational dialog with machines – which will be noticeably more natural and competent than the speech interactions we’ve have had with computers and smartphones to date,” said Eric Horvitz, Technical Fellow and Managing Director, Microsoft Research. Microsoft’s Horvitz is convinced that, starting in 2016, personal assistants will become more genuinely helpful by understanding important things in users’ lives as the tasks they work on and the commitments they make to others.