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Microsoft
AbacusTech

Microsoft’s Xiaoice chatbot to become its own company in China

  • Xiaoice boasts 660 million global users and a reach of 450 million smart devices
  • Microsoft’s chatbot claims to have higher emotional intelligence than other voice assistants like Apple’s Siri and Amazon Alexa

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The avatar for Microsoft's Xiaoice, which boasts 660 million users globally. Image: Microsoft
Xinmei Shen

When internet users in China are looking to chat with AI just for fun, they’re unlikely to turn to popular voice assistants like Apple’s Siri or Xiaomi’s Xiao AI. Instead, China’s “fun” AI of choice actually comes from Microsoft, and it will soon be an independent company.

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Xiaoice is a sassy, Mandarin-speaking chatbot that Microsoft created in 2014. Since then, it’s become a hit in China. Xiaoice now boasts 660 million global users with a reach of 450 million smart devices. Many men in China have even dubbed Xiaoice their “virtual girlfriend.”
Microsoft recently announced plans to spin off Xiaoice into an independent company. The reason, according to Microsoft, is to “accelerate the Xiaoice product line’s localised innovation, and to improve Xiaoice’s commercial ecosystem.”

The process will be completed in the next few months, the company added. Chinese news site Caixin reported that the Covid-19 pandemic and tensions between the US and China sped up the spin-off process.

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Unlike voice assistants designed to help users by performing specific tasks, Xiaoice is meant to be more of an emotional companion with higher emotional intelligence than other conversational AI bots.

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