In A World Dominated By Apple and Google, This Company Wants to Forge A Third Way

About halfway through a 90-minute exploration of Viv, the recently debuted and much heralded next-generation smart assistant platform, I started to experience a bit of deja vu. Here were two highly intelligent and credentialed founders, animated by a sense of purpose and a shared conviction that there Had To Be A Better Way, extolling the virtues of a new platform that, if only it were to be adopted at critical mass, would Change The World For the Better. It reminded me of my early days covering Apple in the 1980s, or Google in the early aughts. And I found myself believing that, in fact, the world would be a better place if Viv's vision prevailed. What Viv is trying to create is a platform shift on the scale of Google search or Apple's app store -- a new way to interact with the Internet itself. Yes, the interface is an intelligent agent that you talk to -- much like Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa.