XiaoIce used to be a Microsoft artificial intelligence research and development project that originated in China. Since its release in 2014, Microsoft Xiaoice has led the technological innovation of artificial intelligence and has become one of the world's largest cross-domain artificial intelligence systems. In July 2020, Microsoft officially announced that it will spin off the artificial intelligence XiaoIce business into an independent company. The former Microsoft Global Executive Vice President Dr. Shen Xiangyang will be the chairman of the new company. The new company will continue to use the Chinese XiaoIce and Japanese Rinna brands , To provide complete technologies and solutions based on conversational artificial intelligence for a wide range of customers in Greater China, Japan and Indonesia.
Unlike the question-and-answer functional artificial intelligence robots such as Cortana, Siri, and Alexa, Xiaoice's greater ability lies in conversational chat, and the simple understanding is to chat with humans. As early as 2015, Shen Xiangyang expressed his hope that Xiaoice will become a robot that slowly integrates into human society, a personal assistant for every user, and a human who understands users, can communicate, and can communicate through emotional computing. smart robot. At the third-generation XiaoIce conference, Lu Qi, then Microsoft's global executive vice president, pointed out that Microsoft proposed and has already practiced emotional computing and has received preliminary recognition from the industry. XiaoIce may be the first ever "exercise". Become an artificial intelligence robot for emotional computing.
However, unlike functional artificial intelligence robots, the commercialization of artificial intelligence robots based on emotional computing is not easy. On November 24, 2020, three months after the independence of the XiaoIce business from Microsoft, Microsoft China and XiaoIce announced that they have reached a strategic partnership. Based on the Microsoft Azure intelligent cloud, a series of artificial intelligence + cloud will be launched for customers in the ToB industry. Calculated solution. Shen Xiangyang emphasized at this strategic cooperation conference that independent Xiaoice has become a localized AI product and technology, and the biggest benefit lies in localized operations and business model innovation. In particular, joint innovation and operations with local partners and customers are opening up the industry's digital value-added business space.
Break through the "ceiling" of artificial intelligence
Erik Brynjolfsson is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School. He has long been concerned about the impact of information technology in the fields of business strategy, productivity, and performance. The Second Machine Age, which he co-authored with another scholar, was once a national bestseller. In 2017, in an interview with Harvard Business Review, he talked about that smart machines are taking over more and more human jobs, but they are not good at a wide range of creative tasks, such as writing novels, social skills between people, and Sales or coaching tasks that require persuasion and negotiation skills.
(Shen Xiangyang, Chairman of XiaoIce Company, introduced XiaoIce from previous generations)
The artificial intelligence "ceiling" pointed out by Erik Brynjolfsson was exactly what Microsoft Xiaoice was working on at the time. In July 2017, the fifth generation of Xiaoice was released. At that time, a new Generative Model (Generative Model) was added, which means that it can initiate a conversation actively, in other words, it can initiate a chat actively, not just passively respond to human chats, especially this kind of initiative. The initiation of the chat was also carried out in the two scenes of calling and smart speakers. Before the release of the five generations of XiaoIce, it had already tested the waters in sales. In Japan, XiaoIce communicated with Lawson users on LINE. During the conversation, he found opportunities to provide Lawson discount coupons to these users. , The result of the final test is that the conversion rate of using discount coupons within 4 days is 57%-no previous method has exceeded 10%.
In May 2017, Microsoft released XiaoIce's first collection of poems, "Sunlight Lost the Window". At that time, Microsoft Xiaoice studied 519 modern poets and used deep neural networks and other technical means to simulate the creative process of people, giving Microsoft Xiaoice the modern poetry creation ability and gradually formed his own creative style, preferences and skills. After Microsoft Xiaoice has learned to write poetry, the next step is to carry out large-scale content production, deploying in the fields of television media, print media, music and TV dramas.
By the sixth generation of XiaoIce released in July 2018, at that time Microsoft XiaoIce had used artificial intelligence technology to realize the generation of text content in the fields of poetry and finance, the generation of audio content in the fields of songs and audiobooks, and TV and radio programs. And interactive radio and other streaming content generation work, and completed the implementation of different degrees. For example, in the field of television and radio, at that time, Microsoft Xiaoice participated in the production and hosting of television radio programs through artificial intelligence technology. There were 21 television programs and 28 radio programs.
In August 2019, the seventh generation of Microsoft XiaoIce was released. The full-duplex voice interaction sensory traditional phone and smart speaker equipment that Microsoft XiaoIce launched in 2017 and 2018 respectively landed. By 2019, a new car scene will be added. The interactive experience of artificial intelligence assistants with drivers and passengers is greatly improved, and the transformation of artificial intelligence from intelligent central control to "virtual passenger" experience is promoted. In August 2020, the eighth generation of Xiaoice after Xiaoice's business became independent was released. At the meeting, the virtual humans that started public beta in May 2020 were introduced. During the public beta, more than 1 million virtual humans were created in response to user needs.
From May 29, 2014, XiaoIce officially launched the first generation of products, to become an independent company in July 2020, and then to launch the eighth generation of products in August 2020. In November 2020, it became a strategy of Microsoft China as an independent company. The partners, based on the XiaoIce framework, account for about 60% of the total global artificial intelligence interactions, covering 660 million online users, 450 million third-party smart devices and 900 million content viewers.
Open up a new space for industry digitalization
Let artificial intelligence robots have the ability to work creatively, how will this translate into commercial value? In other words, what kind of commercial value does it translate into? This is a problem that must be faced and solved by the creative artificial intelligence technology and products represented by Xiaoice. Still in the era of Microsoft's Little Ice, XiaoIce has made continuous explorations and attempts in commercialization, especially in the field of ToB. It has made good progress in commercialization. After returning to the Microsoft family and becoming a strategic partner of Microsoft, China Xiaoice has a clearer direction in opening up a new space for digitalization and informatization in the Chinese industry.
(Zou Zuoji, Vice President of Microsoft Corporation and Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft China)
"We are very pleased that Xiaoice has become a strategic partner in the field of Microsoft's artificial intelligence commercialization solutions in China in a new form," said Zou Zuoji, vice president of Microsoft Corporation and chief operating officer of Microsoft China. "I believe that Xiaoice is the world's leading interactive Artificial intelligence applications will be able to combine with Microsoft's advantageous resources in industry applications and commercial promotion, accelerate the commercial promotion of artificial intelligence interaction in all walks of life, and provide a steady stream of new ideas for building a cross-border ecology and empowering industry transformation and upgrading. kinetic energy."
First of all, China Xiaoice provides basic artificial intelligence technologies such as machine vision capabilities, natural language understanding capabilities, and text-to-speech conversion capabilities to a wide range of industry users with its cognitive computing capabilities. As a complete artificial intelligence technology framework for new forms of interaction, Xiaoice framework has a global leading position in the fields of natural language processing, computer speech, computer vision and artificial intelligence content generation. It is also the most mature application and the largest user group in the world. Basic framework.
On November 23, 2020, according to information from the Chinese Government Procurement Network, based on the capabilities of the artificial intelligence XiaoIce framework, XiaoIce has won the bid for the key project of the Winter Sports Center of the State Sports General Administration. Xiaoice will provide a visual scoring system for freestyle skiing aerials to contribute to the preparation for the 2022 Winter Olympics. It is reported that this is the first landing result of artificial intelligence in the field of global competitive sports. In response to the cooperation with the Winter Olympics, Xiaoice will provide a visual scoring system for freestyle skiing aerials, to meet the scientific training needs of the freestyle skiing team of the Winter Sports Center of the State General Administration of Sports, and to create original ideas based on the sports characteristics of the freestyle skiing aerials project. The skiing analysis model helps athletes improve training efficiency.
Second, China Xiaoice continues to provide new space for expansion and upgrade, filling in gaps, or creating business value-added in the artificial intelligence industry and business fields that have matured or have undergone multiple rounds of technical practice in the early stage. Since November 2017, Xiaoice has cooperated with major domestic financial information service providers such as Wind Information and Wall Street Insights to provide its users with a summary of the listing announcement text generated by artificial intelligence technology. The above-mentioned services cover all 26 financial categories, and the service targets include more than 90% of domestic financial institution traders and more than 40% of individual financial traders. In fact, hundreds of listed companies may make announcements at the same time every working day morning, and each announcement can reach hundreds of pages. The empowerment of Xiaoice artificial intelligence technology can effectively ensure the stability and accuracy of financial information services. Timeliness.
In the field of artificial intelligence vehicles, many car companies and artificial intelligence technology manufacturers have jointly realized the intelligent driving cabin experience such as intelligent central control, while Xiaoice expects to expand from the intelligent driving cabin to the virtual co-pilot experience. XiaoIce has become an in-depth co-creation partner of Chinese Express and other auto brands. Starting from the pre-installation design stage, it has worked with auto manufacturers to create virtual travel partners. On the basis of realizing full-vehicle-level voice control, it provides users with natural and emotional interactive. Ding Lei, founder, chairman and CEO of Huaren Express Gaohe Automobile, said: "Huaren Express Gaohe Automobile has a world-leading, highly intelligent open H-SOA superbody electrical and electronic architecture. With the empowerment of Microsoft and artificial intelligence Xiaoice , Landing the world’s first in-vehicle emotional intelligence partner HiPhiGo to accompany users on their trips, with innate learning and creative abilities, and can evolve and grow with car owners. In the future, both parties will share the mission and vision of changing the future of human travel."
Third, and most importantly, is to open up new digital spaces for industries with low levels of digitalization. According to relevant statistics, the textile industry represented by textile manufacturing and textile garment decoration is at a relatively low level of digitalization and informatization. With the rise of personalized consumption, small-batch, personalized clothing production has become a new industry trend, but for textile mills, the real bottleneck is not manufacturing and design. Due to the general lack of clothing and apparel designers, it is impossible to realize the personalized consumption demand of "one person, one clothing".
Lufeng Weaving and Dyeing is one of the world's largest high-end fabric manufacturing enterprises, with an annual output of nearly 100 million meters of high-end fabrics, and its products are exported to more than 30 countries and regions. It is the designated apparel fabric provider for many world-famous brands. Lufeng Weaving and Dyeing wants to further enhance the added value of the enterprise, achieve more breakthroughs in the industry, and improve the position of the enterprise in the industrial chain. Improving the ability of innovative design is one of the key points. The AI textile and garment pattern design platform jointly launched by Xiaobing, China Textile Information Center and National Textile Product Development Center, has helped thousands of companies like Lufeng Weaving and Dyeing to reshape their core competitiveness. Xiaobing's pattern design diversity has reached 10 to the 26th power, and the number is enough to create a distinctive pattern for every grain of sand on the earth. Xiaoice's design capabilities can help textile and garment manufacturing companies achieve large-scale, diversified, and stable quality on-demand design.
As a strategic partner of Microsoft China, China Xiaoice has inherent advantages in leveraging the Microsoft Partner Program. At the Microsoft China Annual Partner Ecosystem Conference (CPC 2020) held not long ago, Microsoft China officially launched the "Partner Deep Plowing Project" and the "2020 Industry Deep Plowing Upgrade Plan" as its core initiative, promising to fully mobilize all Microsoft departments to The combination of product technology, sales channels, customer networks, and the entire ecosystem provides a full range of strong support for partners to expand their influence, increase revenue, and transform and develop.
In summary: the next generation of creative artificial intelligence technology represented by China's Xiaoice will open up a new space for "clouds with numbers to empower intelligence", from the dimensions of replacing human duplication of labor, reducing enterprise operating costs, and increasing productivity. Ascend to open up a new space for creativity, open up a new business operation thinking, reengineer the digital upgrade of business processes, or advance from digital transformation to digital reshaping. Looking forward to the upcoming 14th Five-Year Plan, more companies and industries are looking forward to using digital technology represented by artificial intelligence to create new strategies for differentiation and to stand on top of the world economy with new ideas. China’s Xiaoice is such a new one. Technology partners. (Text/Ningchuan)