Dialogflow

Dialogflow
Formerly
 Api.ai, Speaktoit
Subsidiary
Industry Natural language user interface
Founded Arlington, Virginia, US (2010)
Headquarters Palo Alto, California, US
Key people
 Ilya Gelfenbeyn, CEO
Artem Goncharuk, CTO
Pavel Sirotin, VP Knowledge and Interaction Design
Products Dialogflow, Assistant
Parent Google
Website dialogflow.com

Dialogflow (formerly Api.ai, Speaktoit) is a Google-owned developer of human–computer interaction technologies based on natural language conversations. The company is best known for creating the Assistant (by Speaktoit), a virtual buddy for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone smartphones that performs tasks and answers users' question in a natural language.[1] Speaktoit has also created a natural language processing engine that incorporates conversation context like dialogue history, location and user preferences.

In May 2012, Speaktoit received a venture round (funding terms undisclosed) from Intel Capital.[2] In July 2014, Speaktoit closed their Series B funding led by Motorola Solutions Venture Capital with participation from new investor Plug and Play Ventures and existing backers Intel Capital and Alpine Technology Fund.[3]

In September 2014, Speaktoit released api.ai (the voice-enabling engine that powers Assistant) to third-party developers, allowing the addition of voice interfaces to apps based on Android, iOS, HTML5, and Cordova.[4][5] The SDK's contain voice recognition, natural language understanding, and text-to-speech. api.ai offers a web interface to build and test conversation scenarios. The platform is based on the natural language processing engine built by Speaktoit for its Assistant application.[4] Api.ai allows Internet of Things developers to include natural language voice interfaces in their products.[6] Assistant and Speaktoit's websites now redirect to api.ai's website, which redirects to the Dialogflow website.

Google bought the company in September 2016[7] and was initially known as API.AI; it provides tools to developers building apps ("Actions") for the Google Assistant virtual assistant.[8] It was renamed on 10 October 2017 as Dialogflow.[9]

The organization discontinued the Assistant app on December 15, 2016.

Voice and conversational interfaces created with Dialogflow works with a wide range of devices including phones, wearables, cars, speakers and other smart devices. It supports 14+ languages including Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian. Dialogflow supports an array of services that are relevant to entertainment and hospitality industries. Dialogflow also includes an analytics tool that can measure the engagement or session metrics like usage patterns, latency issues, etc.

References

  1. ↑ "The Digital Personal Assistant Problem Siri Still Hasn't Solved". Fast Company. 8 August 2012. Retrieved 24 October 2012.
  2. ↑ "Speaktoit Secures Funding From Intel". Bloomberg. 25 May 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2012.
  3. ↑ "Speaktoit Scores $2.6M to Put Virtual Assistant Into Cars, Robots and Wearables". The Wall Street Journal. 18 July 2014. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  4. 1 2 Wierema, Sam (16 September 2014). "Build your own Siri: Api.ai offers voice integration for all". The Next Web.
  5. ↑ "api.ai Documentation".
  6. ↑ Tolentino, Mellisa (19 September 2014). "New platforms, upgrades simplify life for IoT developers". Silicon Angle.
  7. ↑ https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/19/google-acquires-api-ai-a-company-helping-developers-build-bots-that-arent-awful-to-talk-to/
  8. ↑ api.ai
  9. ↑ Introducing Dialogflow, the new name for api.ai

Further reading

  • Brandon, John (June 1, 2013). "Speaktoit Review". Laptop Magazine. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  • Hopkins, Brent W (April 3, 2012). "Speaktoit Assistant 0.1.2 review". PC Advisor. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  • Warman, Matt (October 13, 2011). "SpeakToIt Android app review". The Telegraph. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  • "You Can Actually Teach This Virtual Assistant for Android". Tom's Guide. January 28, 2013. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
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