Viv Labs

About Viv Labs

Viv Labs, established in 2012, represents the second chapter for the pioneering minds behind Siri. Founded by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer, and Chris Brigham, the company emerged from their experience at Apple, where they felt the potential of their first creation, Siri, was constrained. Their journey began years earlier with a DARPA-backed AI project, which evolved into Siri, Inc., acquired by Apple in 2010. Disappointed with Apple's closed ecosystem approach, the trio departed to build the AI they had originally envisioned: an open, scalable platform that could connect with a multitude of services.

Operating from San Jose, California, Viv Labs developed an advanced artificial intelligence platform designed to function as an 'intelligent interface to everything'. The core of its business was to create a conversational assistant that could understand complex queries and dynamically write its own code to accomplish tasks by integrating with third-party applications and services. This contrasts with more limited, pre-scripted assistants. The business model was centered on providing this open AI platform to developers, allowing them to build and integrate natural language interfaces into their own applications and devices, from smartphones to home appliances. Before its acquisition, the company secured $30 million in funding from investors including Horizons Ventures and Pritzker Group.

A significant milestone in the company's trajectory was its acquisition by Samsung Electronics in October 2016 for an estimated $214 million. This move was a strategic play by Samsung to compete in the escalating AI assistant market against rivals like Google Assistant, Amazon's Alexa, and Apple's Siri. Following the acquisition, Viv Labs was set to operate as an independent entity, with its technology forming the foundation for the next generation of Samsung's own virtual assistant, Bixby. The Viv platform's unique selling point was its 'dynamic program generation,' which enabled it to understand context, learn, and string together multiple services to fulfill a user's request, such as ordering a pizza or booking a car, without the user needing to open separate apps.