Rumors of Nokia developing an Android voice assistant called Viki started circulating the industry on Friday after the Finnish phone maker filed a related trademark request with the European Union Intellectual Property Office. As the trademark documentation reveals, Nokia is working on a comprehensive software framework for creating and monitoring both mobile and web assistants. The company’s solution is called Viki and reportedly pulls data from various sources and combines them “into a single chat and voice-based interface,” the documents state. Seeing how this description points to a contemporary digital helper like Google Assistant, most industry watchers were quick to predict how Nokia is working on its very own AI assistant to complement its upcoming lineup of Android phones. The Foxconn-owned company has yet to comment on this report.
It remains to be seen whether Viki is a standalone digital assistant or just an interface for some other solution, as Nokia’s latest trademark application is too ambiguous to serve as a basis for any final conclusions. Regardless, the recent trend of smartphones shipping with voice assistants certainly suggests that Nokia is planning to follow in the footsteps of Google, Apple, Huawei, and possibly even Samsung. While this trademark application doesn’t give us much to go on, it’s reasonable to presume that if the Finnish phone maker is indeed developing a voice assistant, it’s probably looking to integrate it into its premium smartphones, just like the rest of the industry is currently doing. Even though consumers are slowly getting used to the idea of using AI helpers, voice assistants are currently only integrated into flagship devices like the Google Pixel and the Google Pixel XL.
The Foxconn-owned consumer electronics maker recently debuted one such device called the Nokia 6 but seeing how that phone is slated to be released in the coming months, it probably won’t feature a built-in voice assistant. However, Nokia is expected to debut five or six other Android smartphones over the course of this year, so it’s certainly possible that one of them will boast a digital assistant. More information will likely follow soon as Nokia is slated to reveal new devices at the upcoming Mobile World Congress next month.