VBD 
Not only is she capable of assisting users in smart car control, navigation and all, voice assistant ViVi VinFast can also make natural conversations with drivers as a companion on the road.
Developed by VinBigdata, a technology company of Vingroup, ViVi voice assistant, integrated on VinFast’s newly launched electric car (VF e34), is getting much attention from a large number of consumers.
A “Make-in-Vietnam” AI products
“I’m so sad/ Talk to me/ Who do you love the most/ How to lose weight/ What to eat today? Show me how to flirt/ Tell a joke ViVi…” From first impressions, it may seem hard to believe that these are some typical conversational commands that drivers can try with voice assistant Vivi on the first electric cars of VinFast VF e34 – which have just been officially handed-over to the first customers last weekend.
Starting with the wake-up word “Hey VinFast”, ViVi is developed based on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing technology. A representative of VinBigData revealed its functions when integrated in the vehicle, that the application allows drivers to use voice commands to ask ViVi to perform many hands-free tasks such as navigation, calling, messaging, playing music, reading news, or controlling car functions…
“Moreover, ViVi can also make small talk, tell jokes as well as give answers to daily life questions, helping the driver have moments of relaxation and entertainment. The system is capable of providing drivers with general knowledge and performing multiple hands-free tasks on the go without affecting the drivers’ concentration and driving” he shared.
According to the representative of the company, ViVi is a “Make-in-Vietnam” voice solution, developed by a team of leading engineers in Vietnam under the leadership of Professor Vu Ha Van, Scientific Director of VinBigData, and Professor of Mathematics at Yale University (USA).
“With the advantage of big data and the mind of young intellectuals, if invested properly, we can confidently look forward to a successful development of many smart application solutions in various industries such as health care, agriculture, transportation and commerce, helping Vietnam catch up with the world’s progress. The introduction of completely “made in Vietnam” products like ViVi is a shining example. In terms of community services, the voice assistant product that understands Vietnamese people best must be the one created by Vietnamese people ourselves,” emphasized Prof. Van.
VinBigData experts revealed that Vivi is developed based on tens of thousands of hours of high-quality data with the ability to recognize Vietnamese language accurately up to 98%, ViVi can understand and converse naturally with drivers in different contexts. This is something that quite a few voice assistants currently can support for the Vietnamese language.
ViVi is “trained” by the users themselves
According to experts, the integration of ViVi on the VF e34 marks the first milestone in the process of perfecting VinBigData’s comprehensive voice assistant product exclusively for Vietnamese people. In the near future, VinBigData intends to continue emerging this language processing-based product/voice assistant into other domains.
Experts say that, for Artificial Intelligent-powered products, regardless of the countries, in the early stage, there is always a gap between the ideas from the laboratory and the actual experience. The key to bridging this gap is to always listen, collect data, and improve. “For ViVi, as a “baby”, learning with users will help her become more and more intelligent, understand users better, thereby improving the personalized experience for users”, VinFast’s representative added.
Specifically, in the car, to truly become a comprehensive voice assistant, it will take time for ViVi to learn and share experience with the driver, and gradually find ways to adapt to different habits and routines of each person.
According to Dr. Nguyen Kim Anh – Director of VinBigData Virtual Assistant Technology Center – in terms of conversational function, different users will use different words and expressions to describe a command or an intent. “In order to be able to answer correctly, in the most friendly and natural way, the Virtual Assistant needs to go through a process of regular communication and learning with the driver. This has also been a puzzle in natural language processing that the team has set priority to solve and set a detailed roadmap for improvement in the future. The data collected from the errored responses will gradually help Vivi understand people better. Over time, ViVi will continuously update data, learn from users to become the most complete version of herself.” said Dr. Kim Anh.
A new landmark of the voice technology era in Vietnam
The world has already witnessed the rise of many voice assistants such as Google, Alexa, Cortana… from big technology corporations. In Vietnam, ViVi is not the first voice assistant to support Vietnamese language either. However, with its outstanding advantages of a large database, a team of leading experts and highly-experienced scientists, powered by cutting-edge technologies, VinBigdata expects ViVi to become the voice assistant products exclusively for Vietnamese people, leading the domestic market.
“Following the integration of Vietnamese voice assistant in automobiles, we want to apply voice processing solutions to many other fields such as smart speakers or smart homes… with a vision of an era of voice technology in Vietnam. Developed countries are a long step ahead of us in terms of this technology, but with our selling point which is Vietnamese language, we still have huge potentials”, Prof. Vu Ha Van commented.
“In order to create a comprehensive Virtual assistant who deeply understands the habits and routine, regional dialects and needs in the daily life of Vietnamese people, we still have a lot of work to do. This is a big challenge in terms of technology, but also an opportunity for VinBigData to utilize our advantages and set a milestone for voice technology in Vietnam”, Prof. Van affirmed.
VinBigData has also been developing and introducing an ecosystem of products powered by Artificial Intelligent and Big Data. This ecosystem includes multi-disciplinary products such as AI solution for medical imaging analysis, level-4-autonomous vehicle, AI camera solution and most recently Voice assistant (ViVi) firstly integrated in VF e34 – the first smart electric car of Vietnam.
Learn how to interact and communicate with Voice Assistant at: https://shop.vinfastauto.com/vn_vi/car-vfe34.html (scroll to Smart Voice Assistant section)
