Photo: ReutersMadrid/London: Apple Inc. has Siri, Amazon.com Inc. has Alexa and now Telefonica SA is promoting its own digital personal assistant with a voice, Aura. The telecom carrier is set to release Aura in six countries, a key plank of chief executive officer Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete’s data-focused strategy. Aura will be integrated into other platforms to reach Telefonica customers, starting with Facebook Inc.’s Messenger in Germany and Chile and later Alphabet Inc.’s Google Assistant and Microsoft Corp.’s Cortana. The personal assistant is just one service from Telefonica’s internal digital project—its so-called fourth platform—run by chief data officer Chema Alonso, who oversees a team of about 700 people. While the wait for Aura is over for Telefonica’s customers, it’s a different story for shareholders.

Source: Mint February 25, 2018 16:52 UTC