BBC’s own voice assistant enters beta trial

Beeb, the new voice assistant being developed by the BBC is to be made available to UK-based members of Microsoft’s Windows Insider Programme.

The beta version will allow the BBC to experiment with new features and to ensure those already available are given a good going over.

The next step will be bringing this beta version out to the general public in the near future.

“We’ve built Beeb because we know there is growing demand from people to access programmes and services with their voice – around one in five adults have a smart speaker in their home, and millions more have voice-activated devices in their pockets,” explained Grace Boswood, COO, BBC Design + Engineering in a blog post.

The curiosity is that in order to access Beeb, you will need to go through an established smart device, with its own voice.

Beeb is currently able to access live and on-demand radio, music mixes, and podcasts.

Other features include the ability to ask for a specific joke from satirical series The Mash Report. Broadband TV News