Move over Google Duplex, Microsoft's AI bot is already making calls in China

Earlier this month, Google shocked the world by unveiling Google Duplex-- an artificial intelligence system that can make humanised conversations with individuals. Microsoft's AI-based social chat bot XiaoIce was unveiled by the company's CEO Satya Nadella at an AI event in London on Tuesday. Microsoft has been testing XiaoIce in China for quite some time now and Nadella revealed that the AI chat bot has 500 million friends and more 16 channels for Chinese users to interact with it using. While most of XiaoIce's conversations are restricted to text chat, the company has now started allowing the chat bot to call people. During the event, Nadella gave a live demo of XiaoIce while adding that the chat bot has had millions of conversations so far.