Xiaomi Just Launched Its New Virtual Assistant

One of the great trends of the next few years will certainly be virtual assistants and how they can help us in our day to day lives.

The well-known Chinese smartphone manufacturer, of course, I am talking about Xiaomi does not want to be left behind in this market and has now introduced Xiao AI, its virtual assistant, which will come pre-installed on their smartphones.

For a number of years, major technology brands such as the tech giant Google, the tech giant Microsoft and the tech giant Apple have focused on virtual assistants as a way to help users with day-to-day tasks and questions. In the market, we currently have some very interesting solutions, such as Google Assistant, Cortana and Siri, which have evolved much over time.

Not wanting to be left behind in this race, Xiaomi also set to work and launched Xiao Ai.

Xiao Ai – Artificial intelligence at the service of Xiaomi users

For some time we have been talking about the possibility of Xiaomi developing its own virtual assistant technology, based on artificial intelligence.

After several rumours, the Chinese brand finally announced the long-awaited news, giving it the name of Xiao Ai. This virtual assistant will come pre-installed on the newly introduced Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, however, it will also be available to anyone installing the latest version of the MIUI Chinese ROM.

With Xiao Ai, traditional interactions such as scheduling alarms, sending messages, asking the time, activating the camera or asking for traffic status are available. However, there will also be strong integration with WeChat and the Xiaomi ecosystem, such as vacuum cleaners and smart-home gadgets.

For now, this assistant will be very positioned for the Chinese market, as expected, and should only support the Chinese language in the early days. With this move, the well-known Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi should want to take advantage of the absence of Google Assistant in the Chinese market.

Is this a “Powered by Microsoft” solution?
With the launch of Xiao Ai, now comes a detail that may intrigue the most solicitous. Xiaomi has worked closely with Microsoft on several projects, and even signed some cooperation agreements. But will this be a product developed within these cooperation agreements?

In the promotional video that was released, one of the questions that is asked to the assistant is whether it would be necessary to take the umbrella to the street (“Do I need to take an umbrella today?”). In fact, this is one of the questions widely used to promote Cortana, raising the question whether the tech giant Microsoft will not play a major role in the development of Xiao Ai.


Xiaomi is thus committed to breaking new ground in the world of virtual assistants and artificial intelligence, an area that will be crucial in the future and where the Chinese brand intends to compete and present its own solutions.