Text / Bai Xin
Microsoft Xiaona is three years old, but Microsoft has been founded as a veteran technology company for 42 years. In the wave of giants All in AI, Xiaona has become an important layout of Microsoft's artificial intelligence strategy.
NetEase interviewed Microsoft executive vice president of the Asian Internet Engineering Institute, Microsoft Bing, and Xiao Na project and product team leader Yu Baogang, chatted with him Xiaona and the Microsoft artificial intelligence team behind it.
The new version of Xiaona based on efficiency, focus on the work scene
When Xiaona was just launched, the field of smart assistants had not yet emerged on a large scale. Today, the giants are embarrassed to not have their own smart assistants. Faced with the rise of the entire market, Xiao Na's latest version has a new interface display, convenient reminder list and settings interface, and for the first time on the iOS platform has a lock screen plug-in function, Xiao Na account and Microsoft all office software account can be real-time interoperability . The new version of Xiaona has the ability to understand the semantics of e-mail intelligence. Through the use of machine learning, Xiao Na can refine important clues in user e-mails and advise users to set reminders in due course. All of these features show that the focus of Xiaona's assistant function is gradually penetrating from the scene of life to scenes such as work scenes. The purpose is to provide users with more intelligent office support.
Xiao Na also has the ability to understand the semantics of the e-mail, picking up important and user-informed information from the e-mail for prompting.
Unlike Amazon, Google and other IT vendors developed smart speakers, or Apple Siri single-platform applications, Microsoft tried to explore more artificial intelligence applications, Xiaona now has 145 million users worldwide. For the rumors that Microsoft will launch its own smart speakers, Zhai Baogang also gave confirmation that it will be released in the United States this fall.
In the face of competitors, Yu Baogang also pointed out Xiaona's three advantages: artificial intelligence technology, business user work scenarios and Bing.
First, the true power of the assistant is in the background and its integration with each terminal. Xiao Na has three years of data accumulation and understanding of user feedback. I am more confident in this aspect;
Second, Xiaona's positioning is based on efficiency. It is to take your work and make your life more efficient. The reason why this is done is also related to Microsoft's traditional investment in this area, like our corporate users are also the most. Compared with us in these peer products, I think that this is a foothold for us. It is also related to factors such as the company, the customer base, and our input. I think it can be closely combined. This is something that many of our peers do not see. Have advantages;
Third, Bing’s share of search engines ranks second in the United States, but this search engine, I think, in addition to providing search services, search engines are a very important value, especially in terms of artificial intelligence, it provides an understanding of the world It means that it is actually a source of knowledge. In fact, if you look at some products, it is not really able to answer users from all aspects of the problem, then the depth and breadth of the knowledge base behind it have become crucial, I think because of Bing's search The engine, so we have also established this knowledge map through the years of research. This actually makes a smart device feel that it is smart, in fact it requires it to answer many of the user's questions. The breadth and depth of the answer to the question is therefore very tightly coupled with this knowledge map, so this is also an advantage for our smart assistant.
Microsoft Xiaona represented the understanding of intelligent technology to people. In Microsoft's artificial intelligence strategy, Xiaona is the important layout of artificial intelligence in the future. The application and popularization of artificial intelligence requires three aspects of knowledge: understanding of the world, understanding of work, and understanding of users. Xiao Na is evolving and developing in these directions. Microsoft will also spare no efforts to carry out continuous R&D and investment.
How will Microsoft use this artificial intelligence tuyere?
On July 20 this year, the State Council issued a new generation of artificial intelligence development plan and proposed that by 2020, the overall technology and application of artificial intelligence will be synchronized with the world's advanced level. The artificial intelligence industry will become a new important economic growth point, and artificial intelligence technology standards and services will be initially established. In the system and industrial ecological chain, the scale of artificial intelligence core industries exceeds 150 billion yuan, bringing the scale of related industries to more than 1 trillion yuan.
Regarding the extent to which the country has really raised its artificial intelligence to a national strategy, Min Bao just felt very excited and said that it was very optimistic. “I actually did similar things in college. At the time, we did BP, neural network training. For so many years, with the breakthroughs in data, calculations, and algorithms, all of these suddenly seemed to be in place. I It feels like a very lucky thing to feel like this."
"When Xiaona released her assistant, there were not many applications. Microsoft can be said to be a leader in the wave of artificial intelligence. In the past few years, Microsoft's investment in AI is also very focused." "For the entire company level, artificial intelligence has become a very important strategic division of Microsoft. In October of last year, we specifically integrated several different product divisions, led by Dr. Shenxiang Xiang. In the department specialized in artificial intelligence research, there are thousands of people and global teams to invest in. At the beginning of this year, we further expanded Xiaona's artificial intelligence assistant team. I would like to say from the above resources and the degree of emphasis. The past few years have been a deepening process."
At the moment, players have come, of course, the domestic BAT, Lenovo and other giants have also expressed their transformation and increased layout. In this regard, Yu Baogang believes: “There are so many industry partners doing this together, I I think it is a very good thing.I think there are several main reasons: First, I think that any new technology is accepted by everyone is a process that requires the joint efforts of the entire industry.From the user's perspective, there is a slowly accepted psychological In addition, to be honest, although there are many breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, I feel that the overall level of technology may actually be an infancy. I feel that it is not a company that is trying hard to work hard with the industry. I think it's more It's easy to make this matter a reality. One more thing, I think if artificial intelligence is to succeed, not only technological breakthroughs, but also talent-level progress, and application scenarios, we actually care very much now. How can we make artificial intelligence like Xiao Na help our work and life and apply it to a variety of different On the platform and across the scenes, such as smart hardware, such as augmented reality, etc.. There are partners in the industry to do it together, I think this matter is actually more likely to make a breakthrough, so the whole thing I think is very exciting Yes, so Microsoft was able to lead this trend a few years ago, and I feel very proud of myself and hope that in the future we can have more cooperation in this area."
The hot market will inevitably lead to the competition for talents. In the recent half of this year, many BAT domestic companies have introduced artificial intelligence talents from Microsoft, which is known as the Whampoa Military Academy. Baidu introduced Lu Qi and Tencent introduced Yu Dong. In this regard, Yu Baogang believes: “The competition for talent is indeed inevitable in the field of IT. I think it's both good and bad. The situation you just mentioned does exist, but the reverse is also true. Actually, we also have a lot from BAT. The colleagues who came here have also been there recently, so I mentioned at the earliest that I said that artificial intelligence has developed to the present day and that all people have artificial intelligence, and I think it is indeed a good thing to cultivate talents. I recently noticed that there are many world-class At the meeting, many experts from China were publishing articles, and the number and quality of them were getting higher and higher.In general, it was a good thing for the industry. There was an article in the past about Microsoft’s engineering academician and the Whampoa Military Academy in the industry. I think it's actually quite good, and I think as a company doing such a contribution to this IT community, I think it's a good thing. Now that we have met many former colleagues, I think the whole thing is a good thing. Then I want to say that talent exchange is In both directions, we actually have a lot of people coming from BAT, and there are many coming from other companies."
Can the voice assistant's future completely replace WeChat?
There is no doubt that the voice assistant has not been widely used in China. The concept itself comes from abroad. Every time at the Google or Apple conference, we can always see “hey siri†and “OK Googleâ€. Bridge section.
Then, in terms of developing habits, what lessons can be learned from abroad? Zang Baogang thinks: “The living habits of people in different countries are not the same and cannot be copied. I think the artificial intelligence assistants must do a good job of personalization. Personalize the usage scenarios of this user, otherwise the limitations will be great. ."
Zhai Baogang gave an example of his use of smart speaker scenarios abroad. "Because I know that the smart speakers in foreign countries may be Amazon's Echo. The scene of Alexa, which is the voice interaction system, is a kitchen scene. I put the speakers. In the living room, I later found out that I would still put it in the kitchen and try it out, because his life was concentrated there. But if this scene is in China, it will work, I don’t know. I don't see any speaker yet, of course, new products are still coming out, but now I haven't seen at least the speakers that have come out like foreign ones, that is, so much used in the US market. I think that the habit of eating and cooking with the Chinese people in China and living habits are not the same, and this scenario has all been copied in China. I think there may be problems. I think there will definitely be different places. But what exactly is the best scenario for China in the end? I don’t think there is a single answer that may be specific to the device’s results. Not the same, I feel that the same scene is very reasonable in the United States, but that scene does not necessarily make sense if it is changed to another European country, and I don’t think it makes sense to switch to China because ours The habits of eating and cooking are different."
As the person in charge of Xiaona's mobile phone, Zang Baogang also shared his development insights with NetEase. "My strongest feeling about AI is that you want an assistant to solve all the problems is very difficult. , so you must find a foothold.We have more emphasis on efficiency since December 2016. We also tried it at the beginning, such as telling jokes and singing songs. I think Xiaona’s position is focus. In efficiency, but this efficiency does not mean that you only deal with your work problems, because you are very busy in life, so Xiao Na will actually help you with the need for efficiency improvement, so identify the positioning of this product, then do not When I stop, I think this is the biggest experience. The other thing is that AI is really a very difficult thing."
Every product and service of Microsoft is integrated into artificial intelligence, from Xbox to Windows, from Bing search to Office. Microsoft hopes to make artificial intelligence universal and integrate into the lives and production of more people and more companies. .
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