The BBC is developing a voice assistant, code named 'Beeb' – TechCrunch

The Guardian reports the plan to launch an Alexa rival, which has been given the working title "Beeb," and will apparently be light on features, given the Corp's relatively slender developer resources versus major global tech giants. The BBC's own news site says the digital voice assistant will launch next year without any proprietary hardware to house it. Instead the corporation is designing the software to work on "all smart speakers, TVs and mobiles." Why is a publicly funded broadcaster ploughing money into developing an AI when the market is replete with commercial offerings -- from Amazon's Alexa to Google's Assistant, Apple's Siri and Samsung's Bixby to name a few? The intent is to "experiment with new programmes, features and experiences without someone else's permission to build it in a certain way," a BBC spokesperson told BBC news.