In 2016 at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, several of the original developers behind what became Siri unveiled Viv, an AI platform that promised to connect various third-party applications to perform just about any task. The pitch was tantalizing — but never fully realized. Samsung later acquired Viv, folding a pared-down version of the tech into its Bixby voice assistant.

Six years later, a new team claims to have cracked the code to a universal AI assistant — or at least to have gotten a little bit closer. At a product lab called Adept that emerged from stealth today with $65 million in funding, they are — in the founders’ words — “build[ing] general intelligence that enables humans and computers to work together creatively to solve problems.” Read More