The BBC Is Creating Its Own Voice Assistant

The BBC is creating its own digital voice assistant. Beeb's the name and the voice assistant's wake word, but don't be surprised if that changes. Rumor has it Justin Bieber is readying a cease and desist.

• When: Some time next year
• Where: On the BBC's website, its smart TV app, and wherever manufacturers want to incorporate the software
• Why: To test out new audio features and serve programming to listeners. Also, Beeb's got beef.

Beeb's beef

Tomorrow, the BBC is pulling its radio services from the TuneIn U.K. radio app, which is popular on the Alexa platform. The broadcaster chose this route—and is withdrawing from other third-party platforms like Google Assistant—because they're not sharing listener data. The BBC wants greater autonomy over how it reaches viewers/listeners and collects data on them. Beeb is one of the solutions.

But...Beeb won't be a bona fide conversationalist like Alexa or Siri. After all, it's being developed by a public broadcaster, not a Big Tech company.

+ The British Broadcasting Corporation took special care to assure that Beeb will understand strong regional accents that can confound mostly American-designed assistants.