Artificial Intelligence in Search Driving App Sales
June 20, 2010
People are loading up their iPhones with apps, most of them free or low cost, but the regular consumer doesn’t see the money that’s already changed hands. Case in point: Siri, http://siri.com/, a “virtual personal assistant” app that can make restaurant reservations, book concert tickets, or look up weather forecasts based on spoken commands. It was created by SRI International and has already cost hundreds of millions of privately funded and defense contract dollars. It’s not the end result that’s worth so much money–it’s the how-it-happens. Apple just paid a reported $150-$250 million for Siri’s artificial intelligence, natural language processing functions, and search technology that are the focus of so much interest.
Siri’s just the first of many mobile search apps that started as government-sponsored work and have trickled down to the little people. Watch for that trickle to become a flood as Siri and its future versions start learning and expanding their capabilities in the next step of artificial intelligence. In ten years, will we be picking up our mobile device and having a conversation with the AI to decide on where to go for vacation, and the AI will do all the research, planning, and preparation?
Jessica Bratcher
June 20, 2010
Post not sponsored.
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