Nanosemantics

Last updated
Nanosemantics
Industry Artificial intelligence
Founded2005
Founders Igor Ashmanov, Natalya Kaspersky
Headquarters
Key people
Stanislav Ashmanov

Nanosemantics Lab is a Russian IT company specializing in natural language processing (NLP), computer vision (CV), speech technologies (ASR/TTS) and creation of interactive dialog interfaces, particularly chatbots and virtual assistants, based on artificial intelligence (AI). The company uses neural network platforms, including its own-made platform PuzzleLib which works on Russian-made microprocessor architecture Elbrus and Russia-based Astra Linux operating system. The company was founded in 2005 by Igor Ashmanov and Natalya Kaspersky.

Contents

Profile

Yi Ge Er *A Shi Ma Nuo Fu  (Igor Ashmanov) Igor Ashmanov.jpg
伊戈尔·阿什马诺夫 (Igor Ashmanov)

The company was one of the first on Russian market to develop dialog interfaces for different branches of businesses, as well as to support community of AI developers. The company's most demanded product, as for beginning of the 2020s, is the automated "online advisers", functioning as chat bots, made for helping customers with usage of commercial products. In 2009 the company released an online service called iii.ru, where visitors were able to create their own AI-based virtual personalities entitles "infs" (for free). A visitor was able to train its own "inf" and let them chat to other "live" visitors as well with other "infs". More than 2.3 million of "infs" were created and trained by visitors over several years. [1] [2]

Nanosemantics Lab maintains its own linguistic programming language for AI development called Dialog Language (DL). Popular social networks and instant messaging services may be used as base platforms.

Nanosemantics' AI bots support different types of businesses: banks and financial services, telecommunications, retail, travel and automobile industry, home appliances production, etc. Among its solutions, Nanosemantics lists projects for various companies and institutions, among them VTB, Beeline, MTS, Sberbank, Higher School of Economics, Webmoney, Gazpromneft, Rostelecom, Ford Motors, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation and others. [3]

The company uses the term "inf" for naming its numerous types of chat bots. The term was coined by co-founder Igor Ashmanov, head of Ashmanov & Partners. A 2014 scholarly research at Higher School of Economics, called "Basics of Business Informatics", [4] states that such "infs", when used at business, may lower load on employees, collect statistics useful for understanding market demand and also may increase customer loyalty by providing fast and informative answers due to usage of large databases. The same research describes Nanosemantics' project for Russian branch of Ford Motors company, when AI capabilities were used for promoting the car model Ford Kuga. The research pointed out that within 2 months since beginning, the promo-website conducted 47774 talks of visitors with the specialized "inf", which indicated several hundred thousand of questions and the longest chat lasted for 3 hours 10 minutes. One-year promo campaign showed that 28.6% of people who made pre-orders talked to an "inf".

In 2016 Nanosemantics launched a SaaS platform aimed at creating customized virtual assistants by users. [5] [6]

The company's flagship product is considered to be Dialog Operating System (DialogOS), a professional corporate platform for creating intellectual voice and textual bots. It has its own linguistic programming language for creation of flexible scenarios and ready-studied neural natural language processing modules that are able to understand human interlocutors.

In 2021 the company presented technology called NLab Speech ASR which contains a set of neural-networking algorithms for processing audio signals and analysis of texts that were trained and calibrated using speech-based big data marked up manually. The technology allows speed of processing of data up to "6 real-time factor" and precision values in noisy audio data may exceed 82%. [7]

In March 2022 the technology was included [8] in Russia's Joint Registry for Russian Programs for Computers and Databases. As well, another technology was included: [9] NLab Speech TTS, which is text-to-speech system that produces synthesized speech from printed text.

Lexy bot by Ashmanov & Partners Robot-pomoshchnik Leksi.png
Lexy bot by Ashmanov & Partners

Joint projects

Nanosemantics participates in Ashmanov & Partners' projects related to AI. Since 2014, it helps in development of hardware "personal assistant" called Lexy, a solution similar to Amazon Alexa and the analogues. [10]

In August 2019 it was announced that Nanosemantics is going to participate in creation of open operating system for creating automated voice assistants. The project was called SOVA (Smart Open Virtual Assistant) and received investment of 300 million roubles (~$4,6 million) from Russian state-maintained National Technological Initiative. [11]

The company maintains long-term partnerships with Skolkovo Innovation Center (resident of IT cluster [7] ), branch association "Neuronet" and Yandex.

Together with USA-based startup Remedy Logic, Nanosemantics has developed a medical diagnostic system for finding, using AI, spinal pathologies in tomography images of human bodies. Among them: central, foraminal and lateral lumbar stenosis, hernias, arthrosis. The system offers options of treatment. [12]

Since August 2021 the company is the resident of Technology Valley of Moscow State University .

Also in 2021, Nanosemantics became a member of Committee on Artificial Intelligence within the Russian Association of Software Developers "Native Soft". [13] [14]

The company states as one of its missions support of initiatives aimed at preservation and development of the Russian language. In May 2021, together with Pushkin Institute, the company created a chat bot called Phil, that explains to Russian people meaning of different Russian neologisms, and offers synonyms for them. Bot's vocabulary contains more than 500 neologisms, as well the bot can give advice on jargonisms and other types of specific words.

Also in 2021, Nanosemanics Lab has signed the first-ever Russian "Codex of ethics of artificial intelligence". It establishes guidelines for ethical behavior of businesses that implement AI-based solutions. [15]

IT contests

The company regularly organizes All-Russian Turing Test competitions for IT developers. [16] Some of these events are co-organized with Microsoft. During the competitions, judges randomly choose virtual interlocutor and have a short conversation with them. They have to determine if a human or a machine is talking to them. An interlocutor may be either a bot or its human creator or operator. The results are measured in per cent of judges that were successfully convinced by a machine that it was a human. [17]

In 2021 Nanosemantics took part in federal project "Artificial Intelligence" by National Technological Initiative. [18]

In December 2021 the company together with state enterprise "Resource Center of Universal Design and Rehabilitation Technologies" (RCUD-RT) held an all-Russian hackathon aimed at development of AI solutions for medicine. During 3 days, participants created several training programs for patients with speech disorders. [19]

In April 2022, another hackathon by Nanosemantics was held together with MIREA – Russian Technological University. Students were participating and trying to generate algorythms for voice deepfakes. [20] 17 teams contested in creation of software that generated artificial voice of a certain person.

Recognition

Runet Prize 2016 Runet Prize 2016 by Dmitry Rozhkov 103.jpg
Runet Prize 2016

Since its foundation, Nanosemantics Lab has received a number of recognitions and awards. Among them are several professional ROTOR awards [21] for the website iii.ru (created in 2009). The website gives the general public the means to create and train virtual assistants, which can then be used on a website or integrated into social networks.

In 2013, a virtual assistant called Dana, created for Beeline Kazakhstan, was awarded with professional prize "Crystal Headset" in nomination "the best applying of technology".

In 2015, the RBTH international media service included Nanosemantics in its list of "Top 50 Startups" in Russia. [22]

In 2016, the company received Russian state-maintained award called Runet Prize in two nominations: "State and Society" and "Technology and Innovation". [23]

In 2021, in Velikiy Novgorod, Nanosemantics team has won a hackathon aimed at finding means of discovering corruption schemes in Russian laws. [24]

In February 2022 the company won another contest by National Technological Initiative, called "Prochtenie", aimed at creation of AI systems for checking schoolchildren's school essays. [25] The Nanosemantics team was awarded 20 million rubles for "overcoming technological barrier" in contest dedicated to English language, and 12 million for 1st place in special nomination "Structure" in Russian-language essay contest.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chatbot</span> Program that simulates conversation

A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly simulate the way a human would behave as a conversational partner, chatbot systems typically require continuous tuning and testing, and many in production remain unable to adequately converse, while none of them can pass the standard Turing test. The term "ChatterBot" was originally coined by Michael Mauldin in 1994 to describe these conversational programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MegaFon</span> Russian telecommunication provider

MegaFon, previously known as North-West GSM, is the second largest mobile phone operator and the third largest telecom operator in Russia. It works in the GSM, UMTS and LTE standard. As of June 2012, the company serves 62.1 million subscribers in Russia and 1.6 million in Tajikistan. It is headquartered in Moscow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natalya Kaspersky</span> Russian IT entrepreneur (born 1966)

Natalya Ivanovna Kasperskaya —who, in the West, uses as her surname the masculine form Kaspersky—is a Russian IT entrepreneur, President of the InfoWatch Group of companies and co-founder and former CEO of antivirus security software company Kaspersky Lab. In addition, she is one of the wealthiest women in Russia and one of the most influential figures in the Russian IT industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual assistant</span> Mobile software agent

An intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) or intelligent personal assistant (IPA) is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual based on commands or questions. The term "chatbot" is sometimes used to refer to virtual assistants generally or specifically accessed by online chat. In some cases, online chat programs are exclusively for entertainment purposes. Some virtual assistants are able to interpret human speech and respond via synthesized voices. Users can ask their assistants questions, control home automation devices and media playback via voice, and manage other basic tasks such as email, to-do lists, and calendars with verbal commands. A similar concept, however with differences, lays under the dialogue systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian Venture Company</span>

RVC (JSC) is a state fund of funds and a development institute of the Russian Federation, one of Russia's key tools in building its own national innovation system.

The Skolkovo Foundation is the principal agency, as a part of VEB.RF group (ex-Vnesheconombank), responsible for the Russian Skolkovo Innovation Center, a scientific and technological center for the development and commercialization of advanced technologies. It is a non-profit organization founded in 2010 and charged by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev with creating a new science and technology development center in the Moscow suburb of Skolkovo. The Skolkovo innovation system comprises the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) established in partnership with MIT, corporate R&D centers, business incubators, private seed and venture funds, and start-up companies, as well as residential space and social infrastructure. It is a city with over 30,000 residents and employees.

Artificial Solutions is a multinational technology company that develops technology for conversational AI systems.

Planeta.ru is a Russian crowdfunding platform, one of the first and currently the biggest in the country. It allows to fund creative, scientific, social, entrepreneurial and other projects by raising money from a large number of individuals. From its founding in June 2012 until February 2019 over 4500 projects totaling billion rubles were funded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Initiatives Development Fund</span> Russian venture capital fund

The Internet Initiatives Development Fund is a Russian venture capital fund established by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives. The Foundation invests in technology companies in the early stages of development, develops a network of start-up accelerators, and is involved in the development of methods of legal regulation of the venture industry.

Cognitive Technologies is a Russian software corporation that develops corporate business- applications, AI-based advanced driver assistance systems. Founded in 1993 in Moscow (Russia), the company has offices in Eastern Europe, with R&D Centers in Russia.

Olga Uskova is a Russian tech entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. She is a founder and president of Cognitive Technologies, one of the leading software development companies in Russia and Eastern Europe. Since 2012 she is head of the Department of Engineering Cybernetics at National University of Science and Technology MISiS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashmanov & Partners</span>

Ashmanov & Partners — Russian privately held company specializing in Information technologies, online marketing, software development, and AI-powered software. Founded in 2001 by Igor Ashmanov and ex-Rambler managers, it has multiple subsidiaries in the same industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igor Ashmanov</span>

Igor Stanislа́vovich Ashmа́nov — Russian entrepreneur specializing in information technology, artificial intelligence, software development, project management. He directed development of the linguistic module ORFO of the Russian edition of Microsoft Office, a family of Multilex electronic dictionaries, Spamtest spam filter etc.

Alice is a Russian intelligent personal assistant for Android, iOS and Windows operating systems and Yandex's own devices developed by Yandex. Alice was officially introduced on 10 October 2017. Aside from common tasks, such as internet search or weather forecasts, it can also run applications and chit-chat. Alice is also the virtual assistant used for the Yandex Station smart speaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haptik</span>

Haptik is an Indian enterprise conversational AI platform founded in August 2013, and acquired by Reliance Industries Limited in 2019. The company develops technology to enable enterprises to build conversational AI systems that allow users to converse with applications and electronic devices in free-format, natural language, using speech or text. The company has been accorded numerous accolades including the Frost & Sullivan Award, NASSCOM's Al Game Changer Award, and serves Fortune 500 brands globally in industries such as financial, insurance, healthcare, technology and communications.

Yandex.Checkout is a Russian online payment system operated by Yandex.Money, a joint venture of Russian technology corporation Yandex and the largest bank in Russia Sberbank. Yandex.Checkout was launched in late 2013. Yandex.Checkout has been the most popular payment application in Russia since 2015. By the end of 2018, the service was used by over 106.000 websites around the globe, including major online retailers and government services portals totaling for over 31% of online payment processing market in Russia by 2018.

PRANA is the first Russia's predictive analytics and remote monitoring IIoT system. It was developed by ROTEC JSC under the supervision of M.V. Lifshitz, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yandex Cloud</span> Cloud-based service and infrastructure

Yandex Cloud is a public cloud platform developed by the Russian internet company Yandex. Yandex Cloud provides private and corporate users with infrastructure and computing resources in an ‘as a service’ format.

ChatBot is software for creating chatbots.

Yellow.ai, formerly known as Yellow Messenger, is an enterprise conversational AI platform founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Mateo, California, USA. It is an Artificial intelligence platform that automates conversational experiences for customers and employees. It enables businesses to deliver human-like personalized interactions in the preferred language. The platform supports more than 135 languages.

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