Microsoft announced to separate its artificial intelligence Xiaoice business into an independent company with Shen Xiangyang as chairman, Li Di as CEO, and Chen Zhan as general manager of Japan branch.

All related work will be done over the next few months.

It is said that Microsoft will maintain its investments rights in the new company and it will authorize the new company to use and continue to develop Xiaoice technologies. With this move, Microsoft aims to accelerate the local innovation of Xiaoice product line and promote the completion of Xiaoice business ecological environment.

On the completion of the separation, the new company will continue to use the brands Xiaoice in China and Rinna in Japan. Meanwhile, it will seek continuous innovation in technology products and commercialization.

Xiaoice is one of the most creative AI technologies in the world developed by Microsoft's Beijing, Suzhou, and Tokyo R&D teams. Since its launch five years ago, Xiaoice has been leading the technology innovation in the AI sector. It achieved outstanding performance in various sectors, including content generation, intelligent retail, AI hosting, and intelligent assistant, making it one of the largest cross-domain AI systems in the world.

So far, Xiaoice has implemented cooperation with many partners, providing complete AI technologies and solutions to customers in Greater China, Japan, and Indonesia. Xiaoice brand has covered 660 million online users, 450 million third-party smart devices, and 900 million content viewers around the world.