Alice, where are you? Alice from Yandex

Virtual voice assistants are designed to simplify our interaction with devices and services. Instead of wandering around graphical interface  in search of the desired menu item, you can simply command in the natural language “Turn on the music” or “Tell the weather forecast”. The ideal assistant should understand the command correctly and execute it.

The technologies that underlie such assistants are far from perfect, but already capable of impressing. You could watch them in action if you used Google Assistant, Cortana or Siri. Now let's see how “”, which recently settled in the Yandex application, can please us.

Speech synthesis and recognition

Although you can easily hear artificial notes in the assistant’s voice, he sounds an order of magnitude more natural than his closest competitor, the Russian version of Siri. To voice the "Alice" attracted actress Tatyana Shitova. By the way, it was her voice that spoke operating system  in the movie "She."

In terms of recognition of Russian speech, the Yandex assistant also has no equal, errors are relatively rare. In addition, the assistant not only recognizes phrases, but also learns to interpret them correctly. Therefore, you can use different formulations and ask the following questions in the context of the previous ones - most likely, the service will understand you:

But misses in the interpretation of requests so far occur in all voice assistants, and Alice is no exception:

Integration with Yandex services

Another important feature of Alice, which the creators focus on, is convenient integration with other Yandex services.

For example, ask an assistant to turn on a song, and it will play in Yandex.Music. Request a translation of the phrase into another language - the assistant will open Yandex.Translate:

Alice is also able to display weather forecasts and build routes thanks to the weather service and Yandex maps. And if you need to find something on the Web, Yandex.Search will help.

Interaction with third-party programs

Regarding integration with third-party applications and services on mobile devices, then “Alice” is not doing so well.

The assistant can be installed on Android and iOS, but so far, Alice has little use of the capabilities of these platforms. So, with its help, you can’t even quickly set an alarm, add a reminder or a note. But Siri can easily cope with these tasks.

Although Alice can open programs installed on the device upon request, this function does not always work. For example, the assistant launches VKontakte and Telegram without any problems, but if you ask him to open Viber, then instead of the application, the assistant will direct you to the site of this messenger. The assistant reacts strange to the “open calculator” command.

In addition, to contact Alice, you must first enter the Yandex application and click on the assistant button (or use the shortcut for quick access if you have Android). This is not very convenient, because one of the main tasks of the voice assistant is to allow you to control the device without hands. Due to its deep integration with iOS, Siri can accept commands even when the screen is locked.

Alice on the computer

Yandex Assistant is also available for computers running Windows as a separate program. After installing it, the taskbar appears search string  and a button for voice interaction with an assistant.

In addition to the features presented in mobile version, "Alice" for Windows can search for files on the hard drive, run desktop programs, turn off the computer or put it into sleep mode.

A program for controlling a computer using voice. This assistant allows you to solve typical problems, conducts a dialogue like a living person, and has a huge vocabulary. Add variety to the dialogue with the computer! Set voice assistant  and teach your PC to perfectly fulfill all your instructions - to run programs, build routes on a map, turn on the radio, read jokes, make toasts, find out the weather on a specified day and carry out quick search  information on the Internet. All interaction between the assistant and the user occurs in voice mode, it is possible to enter commands from the keyboard.

After downloading and installing Yandex-assistant Alice, you just need to say the phrase "Hello, Alice." After that, the assistant is ready to fulfill any of your instructions. If the task goes beyond its capabilities, a browser will be launched with a search query in the form of the specified phrase. You can stop the work of an assistant by saying goodbye to the application, as with a living person.

Alice's Voice Assistant can be downloaded for free on a Windows PC, as well as on devices based on iOS and Android.

Features Alice:

• “Live” voice dialogue with the user;
• search for information on the web;
• duplication of speech phrases with text in the interface window;
• non-standard answers to questions;
• integration into the Yandex.Browser browser.

Advantages Alice:

• clear dialogue pause algorithm;
• support for Windows, Android and iOS;
• there is no need to train an assistant - AI already has a huge vocabulary and clearly perceives Russian speech.

Things worth working on:

• some words are spoken with an incomprehensible accent;
• search is carried out only in the Yandex service.

The program will facilitate the process of user interaction with the computer. She has her own "highlight" - like Siri bot Alice can unconventionally answer a provocative question and even make a joke.

Thanks to artificial intelligence "Alice"  perfectly recognizes natural speech (both oral and written). You can chat with her on various topics. Answers to questions are pronounced by the program aloud, and also displayed on the screen. You can download Yandex Alice for free on a computer or phone using the direct links below, where latest versions  programs.

System requirements  for computer

• System: Windows 10, Windows 8 (8.1), or Windows 7 with x86 / x64 architecture support.

• System: Android 5.0 and above | iOS 9.0 and higher.

• Pimproved program stability.

On October 10, Yandex officially released the Russian-speaking voice assistant Alice, which helps users solve everyday tasks from a smartphone: look for information, get directions, find out the weather, choose which place to go.

In addition to practical application, the service can simply maintain a dialogue with the user - for this you need to say or type on the keyboard "Alice, let's chat." In social networks, they immediately began to check how “smart” the voice assistant is, and to share funny examples of his answers.

Alice is not an estranged voice assistant, the developers came up with a personality for her: name, gender, age and character traits. The creators of the assistant decided that this is a young girl who is always ready to help the user, but does not allow familiarity to herself. Editors thought out 320 scenarios of communication with users and prescribed replicas for them.

Developers and sociologists chose the name Alice through a user survey: they took the necessary and undesirable characteristics of her personality and asked which name would suit a girl with such features. The assistant received the voice of actress Tatyana Shitova, familiar to Russians in the voice acting of artificial intelligence Samantha in the film "She" and rabbit Judy from the animated film "Zootopolis".

Examples of communication with Alice during testing.

The first time a voice assistant was introduced on September 21, when Vladimir Putin came to the Yandex office in honor of the 20th anniversary of the company. The president asked Alice if she was offended, and the developers prescribed an editorial response to this remark.

Since Alice was given the identity of a woman and the developers talk about her in a feminine manner, users first began to flirt with her.

At first they agreed with Alice to have sex, and then she began to look for a man for me.
O women, O treachery! pic.twitter.com/8yqfdwLnLf

- Alexander Pelevin (@comrade_wolgast) October 11, 2017

In the end, Alice was called a "typical woman."

At the same time, Alice herself for some reason declares that she is a man. Journalist Anna Zabolotnaya has already expressed dissatisfaction that the developers called the service with a female name “assistant” and “assistant”, and not “assistant” and “assistant”.

Alice’s gender is also not the most obvious.

Alice really shows human features: for example, she puts off her promise to do something later and gets offended when she is addressed as a voice assistant from a competitor. And when the interlocutor writes something obscene to her, he replies: “Let's pretend that you did not say this, but I did not hear this. And everything will be as before. ”

Alice sometimes makes good jokes. True, he does not understand the references to his namesake Alisa Selezneva and myelophone.

But she knows Internet memes.

And on request, she can tell a joke or a joke herself.

It will help the user, even if he needs to rob a bank.

True, she still does not want everything or knows how to do it.

Also, users were interested that Alice knows about politics. It turned out that she knew some dubious slogans.

Hi Alisa.

This is not the whole list of her opportunities; she is constantly learning new skills and improving herself.

If you are bored or sad, she will joke, tell a joke or play with you. Would you like to watch a movie? Easy - movie posters, tickets and prices in an instant. For children, Alice can turn on a fairy tale. Her answers will always be varied, the creators of the program worked for a long time and were able to put modern live speech into the voice assistant, which many will understand.

The actress Tatyana Shitova participated in the creation of the voice. She previously voiced the American actress Scarlett Johansson. Coincidence or not, but in the voiced voice of Tatyana Shilova in the science-fiction film She spoke virtual assistant Samantha. Thanks to such scoring, Alice turned out to be very lively. In her intonations, sadness, joy, and even audacity can be traced.

The creators explained why they decided to focus on the virtual assistant. Firstly, the industry is moving toward voice, as the current generation of users prefers voice search instead of a printed set. Secondly, the construction of algorithms on meaningful dialogs. That is, the virtual assistant understands that subsequent phrases may be interconnected. This is the basis of the dialogue. The voice assistant Yandex Alice is now also in the Yandex Browser, built-in by default, with it the browser has become much more convenient.

How to install Alice Yandex

1. Download the Alice application from the link below.
2. Install the application.
2. Allow the application to determine the geolocation.
3. For full operation, allow recording sound.
4. For ease of use, you can put a widget or shortcut on the main screen.

Browser screenshots

How to use voice assistant Alice

You can turn Alice on and talk to her by clicking on the purple icon or say one of the phrases: Hello Alice, Listen to Alice or Listen to Yandex. After waiting for the activation sound, you can ask a question or command.

To get an idea of \u200b\u200bthe basic capabilities of the assistant, you can ask: What can you do, Alice? . Voice replies are duplicated by chat text messages.

If you just want to talk, you can say: Hello Alice, let's chat. She will maintain a dialogue, joke or tell a joke. With simple communication, she will not always be able to perform search mode. Therefore, you can go out and start the search function again or give a command with the word Enough.

Conclusion about Alice

Yandex was able to create a convenient application for Android smartphoneswith which you can have fun and get fast access  to information thanks to voice communication.