Fun Fact #4

There were facts flying left, right, and center at SMX Advanced this past week, but one of our favorites discussed China’s incredibly popular chatbot Xiaoice, developed by Microsoft. We love following the unfolding mystery of voice search in marketing, so our interest was piqued.

Xiaoice’s conversations are much less robotic than the Siri and Cortana types we are accustomed to dealing with in North America. Instead of reading lists or pulling search results, Xiaoice answers questions in a completely natural way. She continues the conversation much like a human would, with some conversations lasting hours. Yes, hours! Imagine trying to have a chat with Siri for more than five minutes? Awkward.

Xiaoice came up in Purna Virji‘s talk ‘Optimizing For Siri & Cortana’ at SMX Advanced, where she discussed the ins and outs of optimizing for voice search, including how to use location, long-tail keywords, reviews and how to understand voice search intent.

As Xiaoice continues to learn from her users’ extensive data and grow as an intelligent, ever-evolving chatbot, we are excited to see what sort of opportunities surface for marketers. It will be even more interesting to see how our North American voice assistant counterparts stack up in a few years.

Falling in love already? Get to know Xiaoice a little better in the video below:

Image Credits

Feature Image: Screenshot from Microsoft XiaoIce video (0:28)