“>Xiao Na’s last Weibo is a lottery draw. Picture 丨 Weibo@Microsoft小娜
Xiao Bing, with 5.12 million followers, is like an internet celebrity girl, active on all major social platforms, and has various identities such as anchor, poet, and singer. On June 29 this year, Xiao Bing was also successfully graduated by the Music Engineering Department of Shanghai Conservatory of Music and was awarded the title of “honorary graduate” in 2020.
Not to mention, Xiaobing now has her own company. Compared to Weibo certification, the twin sister Xiaona, who has become “the company’s qualification has not been reviewed”, has a red exclamation mark. The early AI winner. What is it that made a pair of sisters who fell on the ground almost simultaneously on a different path in 2014?
“Microsoft Xiaobing is dead, all.”
June 1, 2014, Children’s Day. A “obituary”–or “text” was published on Sina Weibo. This short article with the signature “Microsoft (Asia) Internet Engineering Institute” accuses “Tencent of using WeChat as an excuse for fake Xiaobing , Two hours ago, chopped the butcher knife to the real ice“. [1]
Photo丨@Microsoft麒冰
The sudden blockade cut the BETA version of Microsoft Xiaobing’s original one-month public beta period on the WeChat platform to less than 60 hours.
Fortunately, the 100,000 accounts prepared by the development team as early as May 29It was sold out on the day.
Microsoft’s short fireworks appearance left a deep impression on people. In the words of Li Di, who later became known as the “Father of Microsoft Xiaobing,” he opposed AI products at that time that he emphasized “IQ” (“Knowledge Function of Voice Assistant”) In the industry trend, Jian Zong focused on “EQ”. [2]
Developing the prototype of Xiaobing Bing Knows Jing Kun, the original plan was to make an in-depth question and answer product based on the knowledge base. At the end of 2013, Li Di, who had just entered Microsoft, reinvented this plan: he hoped that Bing Knows would become a chatbot. [3]
Since then, the development team has even deliberately weakened Xiaobing’s “intellectual level” in the design of the assignment mechanism for evaluation answers-a time to dig into the hollow to create a “God reply” and sometimes answer the unanswered “artificial mental retardation” was born. Too.
Looking back now, WeChat’s move to block Xiaobing’s account on the grounds of damaging the user experience has not only failed to stop Xiaobing’s growth, it may even be counterproductive. At the end of the blog post protesting the killing of the micro-envelope, “Microsoft (Asia) Internet Engineering Academy declared: “Xiaobing temporarily left everyone. But we will Rescue her again. The development of the second generation of Xiaobing is nearing completion.”[1]
Xiao Bing didn’t let people wait too long. On June 25, the development team announced:
“The first generation of Microsoft’s favorite Xiaobing, which has been loved by the majority of users, has been officially resurrected on the Weibo platform from now on. At the same time, the second generation of Microsoft’s Xiaobing, as an artificial intelligence robot companion exclusively equipped for each user , And will also be adopted by Chinese users within 48 hours.”[4]
According to Li Di afterwards, A generation of Xiaobing has been responsible for “more than 50 skills” such as group reminders, encyclopedias, weather, constellations, jokes, transportation guides, restaurant reviews, etc. [3 ]; However, under the official caliber, she is still only lightly positioned as an “intelligent chatbot”: “We only said one thing, she can chat. “
The positioning of the second generation Xiaobing is further refined into a companion artificial intelligence:
“The second generation of Xiaobing will be equipped for each user separately and belong to the sole owner, while following the owner to provide unified artificial intelligence services on each platform of the cross-platform mobile Internet.”[4]
In just 15 hours of release, 500,000 users “received” the second generation of Xiaobing.
Although the second generation of Xiaobing was criticized again and again on the first day due to repeated explosions, the official had to technically limit Xiaobing’s application scenarios, but this time Xiaobing’s pace did not stop there: she has landed on Jingdong , Mi Chat, Yixin and other platforms.
The name of “Cortana” may be doomed from the beginning
In April 2014, two months before Xiaobing was born, Microsoft released Cortana, the “smart personal assistant.” Not only can she handle complex spoken instructions, she can also help users complete daily applications such as opening third-party applications, finding files, and sending and receiving emails.
Cortana’s name is derived from Microsoft’s Halo series of games (“Halo”), in the game, Cortana is a leading hero Artificial intelligence. This name allows users to understand Cortana’s functions as quickly as possible, and also fully ignites the “second sense” of the game house. [5]
Microsoft confidently stated at the press conference: Cortana will be a key part of the plan to innovate the future operating system of Windows. Lu Qi, then vice president of Microsoft, also had high hopes for Cortana, hoping that it would reach 2.5 billion smart devices worldwide in three years. [6]
Three months after the release of Cortana, domestic users waited for the “Chinese version”-on July 30, 2014, Microsoft released the localized version of Cortana “Xia Na”. Xiao Na did not disappoint Chinese users, even if it was a literary stalk like “Feixue shoots white deer in a sky, and the smiling hero relies on Biyang”, she can answer it. [7]
Just like “Cortana” in the game can’t escape death, when Xiao Na chose this name with a fatal sense, she also laid a foundation for her future tragic fate.
In 2014, when asked by the media whether Cortana would land on other platforms, Marcus Ash, one of the inventors of Microsoft Cortana (Marcus Ash) means:
“It is only possible to consider other platforms after Cortana for Windows Phone is fully mature, nor will it consider developing low-level access functions for the deep integration of iOS and Android.” [5]
Marcus is doomed. When Xiao Na released it, the Windows Phone platform that he had high hopes was defeated: Kantar Worldpanel ComTech data showed that as of November, the market share of Windows Phone in the United States fell to 3%, and in China it was even lower to 0.6%— —Cortana, who lost her living space, had to find a sense of presence on other platforms.
On May 26, 2015, Microsoft decided to promote Cortana to Android and iOS systems. At this time, Xiao Na’s position has quietly become “the world’s first cross-platform intelligent personal assistant.” [8]
Since then, Xiaona has gradually become an “assistant”: either integrated on the Xbox platform for social networking, or as a host at Microsoft events. After accessing Skype, Xiaona can track logistics information and event arrangements.
In this way, Xiaona shrinked in her smartphone for three years, and did not start trying on other hardware until 2017.
On May 10, 2017, Harman Kardon launched Invoke, a smart speaker with built-in Corona, which is benchmarked against Amazon Echo.
But it is too late, and Echo has a first-mover advantage. In 2018, Echo accounted for 70% of the US smart speaker market share[9], Invoke was sold at half price [10].
With the failure of smart hardware, Xiao Na has entered a quiet period of several years in China on the one hand, and on the other hand tried more possibilities of “self-help” overseas. In August 2017, Microsoft and Amazon announced the integration of Cortana and Alexa, and users can start another one with any voice assistant to complete more instructions. [11]
But product integration is only a guise. Amazon is looking at Microsoft’s huge PC terminal.
In January 2018, Amazon announced that it had reached a cooperation with HP, Acer, and Asus to transplant Alexa to Win10 PC. This once again compressed Xiao Na’s living space. [12]
What caught Microsoft by surprise was that users who were supposed to be loyal, even welcomed Amazon’s “invasion”: With Alexa, who has 40,000 skills, who would like to use the little 300 skills of Cortana?
Versatile”Ice”
When Xiaona was silent in China and retreated abroad, the Chinese market already could not tolerate the ghost of Xiaobing.
On August 7, 2015, Microsoft Xiaobing took the first step to the overseas market-Microsoft and LINE jointly announced the launch of the Japanese version of the artificial intelligence robot Rinna that uses the same underlying technology as Xiaobing(りんな). [13]
The third-generation Microsoft Xiaobing, released two weeks later, finally “regained lost ground”: returned to WeChat in the form of a public account, and “unlocked the artificial intelligence sensory system including vision and hearing”-supporting image recognition , Voice reply, multilingual translation and other “traditional arts” of artificial intelligence. [14]
In the two years since then, Xiaobing has maintained an annual upgrade rate, and his skills have grown rapidly.
In the two years beginning in 2016, Microsoft’s customized commercial promotion for Xiaobing has also shown a more diversified trend. With the enrichment of application scenarios, Xiaobing’s personalized image became a cross-border “part-time” of “AI+X”.
In terms of talent, Xiao Bing has achieved the same tone and emotions as human singers. Xiao Bing, who has reached the age of 18, even released the first Japanese single on September 17, 2016. [15]
In writing work, Xiao Bing also did not make too much, and became a “special correspondent” of “Qianjiang Evening News” [16] , published an all-artificial poetry collection “Sunshine Lost Glass Window” [17] Tex Information, Wall Street News provides a summary of the listing announcement text [18] .
Xiaobing’s territory is still expanding. In China, on December 9, 2016, Xiaobing entered Tencent QQ, and entered the QQ group chat and QQ public account on March 14 of the following year; in the United States on the other side of the earth, she entered the hometown and became a 20-year-old “Zo” “.
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In 2016, the fourth generation of Microsoft Xiaobing was equipped with a “real-time emotional decision-making dialogue engine”, and even “learned” the “trial situation” to make interruptions or questioning; [19]
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Five generations of Xiaobing in 2017 will fully enter the Internet of Things field and cooperate with many Internet of Things manufacturers;
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In June 2018, Microsoft Xiaobing has evolved to the sixth generation.
Starting from the sixth generation, Xiaobing’s position has shifted from “a leading artificial intelligence dialogue robot” to “a complete artificial intelligence framework with emotional computing at its core”: on the one hand, the appearance of “dialogue” is ebb, The background of “emotional computing” is revealed; on the other hand, in addition to the personalized “robot”, Xiaobing will also assume the upstream function of the “artificial intelligence framework”.
Hug Xiaobing and uninstall Xiaona
The sixth-generation Xiaobing has an unprecedented and clear commercialization strategy: In the Chinese market, she mainly targets the four fields of finance, popular culture, media, and publishing. Especially striking is Xiaobing’s intention to actively integrate into popular culture.
At the sixth-generation Xiaobing conference, Microsoft announced the interactive holographic 3D image of Xiaobing[20]; In April of the following year, Xiaobing signed a contract with the Japanese record company AVEX to debut as a virtual singer. In May 2019, Xiao Bing graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts under the pseudonym “Xia Yubing” and also held a solo exhibition in July. [21]
The seven-generation Xiaobing conference in 2019 further strengthened Xiaobing’s sense of existence as an upstream technical framework. At the same time, downstream, the commercial customers of Xiaobing’s landing have already broken away from the previous “four major areas” and spanned Ten fields of finance, retail, automobile, real estate, textile, etc.-Microsoft Xiaobing’s single-brand online users reached 660 million, covering 450 million third-party smart devices and 900 million content viewers. [22]
When Xiao Bing was in the limelight, no one seemed to remember that she still had a twin sister named Xiao Na. As early as two years ago, Xiao Na had exhausted Microsoft’s last patience.
In October 2018, Xiao Na was moved from the artificial intelligence department to the Office department. This means that Xiaona’s position began to change from an assistant to a productivity tool, and was gradually marginalized by Microsoft.
One month later, Xiaona was stripped from the search function by Microsoft, and no more smart speakers were launched. [23] On January 31, 2020, Microsoft announced Cortana’s withdrawal from China, the United Kingdom, Canada and other countries, while Shut down Xiaona’s apps on Android and iOS. Four months later, Win10 even added a “delete key” to Xiaona in the new version. [24]
After struggling, Xiaona found her last place in Microsoft’s collaboration tool Microsoft Teams. [25] But once became the Office assistant of the collective memory of the post-90s, already in It was removed by Microsoft in 2007.
Xia’s future is also evident.
Two “lost goods”
Xiao Bing and Xiao Na embarked on different paths. The essence stems from the differences in business models.
The difference was decided from the beginning: Cortana and Microsoft’s previously released cross-platform artificial intelligencep> This is not a new business. Xiaobing named this model “Dual-AI” and added it to the original intelligent voice system of Huawei, OPPO, vivo and other mobile phones to activate it by “summoning Xiaobing”. By the beginning of 2020, Microsoft Xiaobing had settled in 450 million third-party smart devices, ranking among the world’s largest cross-disciplinary artificial intelligence systems.
Undoubtedly, after independence, Xiaobing will be more free in foreign cooperation.
The company’s search information shows that the new company is headed by Microsoft’s Xiaobing team’s Li Di as the company’s legal representative and manager, and holds 25.05% of the company’s shares; Microsoft Xiaobing’s product leader, Peng Shuang, serves as a supervisor and holds 0.99% of the company’s Shares; Shen Xiangyang serves as an executive director and does not hold shares.
Li Ming, who does not appear in the company’s senior management column, is the majority shareholder and holds 70% of the company’s shares. According to media reports, Li Ming is also a member of the Microsoft Xiaobing team.
According to Caixin, the Xiaobing team now has nearly 200 full-time employees. It is expected that there will be 50 or 60 people in China and a team of more than a dozen people in Japan to join the new company. After the split, Microsoft will become the new company. The company’s small shareholders will also introduce external strategic investment and venture capital during the split. An investor who has been in contact with the Xiaobing project said that the new company’s valuation is at the level of US$700 million, and it is still considering whether to buy shares, and has concerns about the efficiency of Xiaobing’s commercialization. [28]
Xi Bing’s commercial efficiency is clearly limited by the fact that no hardware manufacturer is willing to give his home court unreserved hand to a third party for “empowerment.” Being hidden in the snow and being replaced is just a matter of thought. The same thing happened in many industries. For example, the company that exported face recognition technology was eventually hidden behind the security equipment giant. The company that exported beauty technology was eventually replaced by the mobile phone manufacturer’s camera team.
The shift to to B and more empowerment is a last resort-the same is to do intelligent voice, another Chinese early smart speaker company’s main business has now become a solution, consumer products stay in 2018 again No updates. Products that don’t allow consumers to buy them, may always be needed by the company.
I wish Xiaobing who left Microsoft more happy.
References:
[1] Microsoft Qibingtana for Android and iOS https://venturebeat.com/2015/05/26/microsoft-announces-phone-companion-app-for-windows-10-and-teases-cortana-for-android-and-ios/< /span>
[9] Seventy percent of smart speaker users in the US use Amazon Echo to crush Apple and Google https://tech.qq.com/a/20200211/003274.htm
[10] Harman Kardon Invoke speaker Cortana cool can no longer use his basic skills m.itxinwen.com/show-15-15-34291.html
[11] Microsoft Xiaona Transformation Notes https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/zxTGMuF-zxV7-fyrz45QHg
[12] Amazon Alexa logs into Windows 10 PC https://livesino.net/archives/10521.live
[13] Promoted to the third generation of Microsoft Xiaobing and finally shake hands with WeChat and reconcile https://www.yicai.com/news/4674760.html
[14] The third generation of the “17-year-old girl” Microsoft Xiaobing returned to WeChat in the form of a public account, and various poses are sought for fun https://www.huxiu.com/ article/123781.html
[15] The longing Microsoft Xiaobing, artificial intelligence that may be at risk xiaoqian.blog.caixin.com/archives/210698
[16] Microsoft Xiaobing joins Qianjiang Evening NewsNew vitality of paper media https://epaper.qlwb.com.cn/qlwb/content/20161204/articelb01037fm.htm
[17] For the creation of artificial intelligence, Microsoft Xiaobing launched the poem collection “Sunshine Lost Glass Window” https://36kr.com/newsflashes/58145
[18] The genius girl Xiaobing: After chatting, singing, and writing news, she unlocked her new drawing skills finance.sina.com.cn/stock/relnews/us /2019-05-18/doc-ihvhiews2755730.shtml
[19] The fourth generation of Microsoft Xiaobing is here! Can talk and can simulate human singing independently finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2016-08-05/doc-ifxuszpp2957897.shtml
[20] “Xia Yubing” holds a solo exhibition to unlock the Xiaobing H5 program k.sina.com.cn/article_1749990115_684ebae302000kzrj.html?from=cul
[21] Microsoft releases six generations of Xiaobing: has an interactive 3D form factor and announces cooperation with Huawei https://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2018-07- 26/doc-ihfvkitx1040179.shtml
[22] The seventh generation of Microsoft Xiaobing has new skills bjwb.bjd.com.cn/html/2019-08/16/content_12109473.htm< /p>
[23] Microsoft will completely separate Windows 10’s Microsoft Cortana from the search function https://new.qq.com/omn/20181112/20181112B08VH800< /p>