MWC 2018 -- Telef--nica has launched its voice-activated "cognitive" assistant Aura in the six markets of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Spain and the UK after teaming up with tech giants including Facebook, Google and Microsoft on the new platform. First announced at last year's Mobile World Congress, Aura works much like Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana, allowing customers to request information and control devices through voice commands. Powered by artificial intelligence, the Aura technology will be available through apps that Telef--nica's customers can download onto their mobile devices. Unlike the digital assistants from Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Google, however, Aura has been designed around the communications services that Telef--nica provides to its customers. "It is a new customer relationship model based on cognitive intelligence and a one-stop shop for navigating through different channels," said Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, Telef--nica's CEO, during a press conference earlier today.

Mobile World Congress 2017 -- Telef--nica has taken a bold leap into the age of artificial intelligence with its launch today of a new digital assistant called Aura, which appears to be the product of a two-year research initiative at the Spanish telco that has been a closely guarded secret. Unveiled in Barcelona on the cusp of this year's Mobile World Congress, Aura sounds and works much like Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL)'s Siri or Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN)'s Alexa, allowing customers to check on details of their Telef--nica service -- and ask for problems to be resolved or new features to be provided -- using a voice interface on a mobile device. Judging by the demonstration at Telef--nica's offices in Barcelona, Aura works at least as effectively as the digital assistants developed by the web giants but differs in one important respect: It stores and can act upon all of the information about a particular user that is relevant to his or her relationship with the operator. In fact, Telef--nica balks at the "digital assistant" label, preferring to think of Aura as a "cognitive intelligence" system than a neat bit of voice-recognition software.