Artificial intelligence developer Just AI has launched the first conversational AI platform using the Kotlin programming language. The new Just AI Conversational Framework (JAICF) augments the open-source Kotlin language with a natural language understanding engine and a template for dialog to generate the voice and text-based AIs.
Kotlin Talk
Kotlin is a programming language known as the preferred choice for Android software and smart devices. The appeal of Kotlin to developers comes not only from its Android compatibility but how relatively compact and easy to amend it is and its use of context to respond to input. That aspect is especially appealing for voice AI, leading to the genesis of JAICF. Just AI is aiming for enterprises exploring the potential of conversational AI who are looking for an easy way to start creating their own products with the AI embedded within. To encourage that use, JAICF is open source and there’s a free toolkit to start playing around with the platform.
The point of JAICF is to make deploying a project as straightforward as filling in some basics about how the AI should interact with customers and clicking the publish button. The resulting AI can operate with voice assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. A text version can also be created for use on platforms like Facebook Messenger and Slack. Technical experts and those who have never done anything with an AI project should be able to work with JAICF, according to the company. And while designed for Kotlin, other programming languages are compatible with the platform.
“When we uploaded JAICF at GitHub we wanted to inform all AI enthusiasts, developers, and companies that Voice Tech has a great promise for the future and it can be implemented in any niche,” said Just AI chief product office Gleb Oblomskiy said in a statement. “And we are sharing a free toolkit which can be used to easily test a hypothesis and build up even mission-critical AI-powered solutions.”
Platforming AI
Companies are increasingly seeing the value of the kind of platform represented by JAICF. It’s why conversational artificial intelligence startups are pulling in major funding, like Rasa Technologies’ $26 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Rasa offers tools for creating ‘contextual assistants’ and shared the Rasa Open Source platform for conversational AI, which Rasa claims has been downloaded more than three million times. Rasa has variations on the free product that do cost money, capable of handling all kinds of customer interactions. Meanwhile, expert-trained chatbot developer Directly closed an $11 million funding round in May, while international e-commerce platform CM.com bought chatbot platform startup CX for $17.5 million. Individual platforms are broadening their offerings in that regard too. Google’s latest Dialogflow is supposed to make it easy to build and publish Google Assistant actions, while Amazon laid out several ways to streamline creating Alexa Skills this summer through templates and developer tools created for that purpose.
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