Artificial Intelligence software and apps used to be the promise of science fiction, but since the dawn of smart computing, faster CPUs. and RAM, that promise has become more of a reality, one that smartphone users started to get used to with the release of Siri in 2012. Now in late 2016, that technology has moved on and become readily available, so much so that the WNNA AI app is changing search forever.
What is the WNNA AI app?
According to the app’s creators, it is a personal recommendation engine which over time time learns the user’s likes and dislikes. Like any personal assistant, its main purpose is to provide you information that relates to what you want.
However, unlike Siri, which relies upon the spoken word to get used to your voice and habits, it relies upon offering relatively simple choices based on activities such as eating, enjoying, finding, buying, working, and watching, meaning that within a few moments of downloading and installing this AI app, you can have it assisting you.
Using the app
While Siri, Google Now and Cortana can be considered AIs which not only help you use the device they’re installed upon but also help you explore the world around you, the WNNA app is comparatively simplistic. It can’t help you find a particular file on your handset, nor can it order you a pizza. Instead, you are limited to the activities we mentioned earlier, with the point of the AI app being that it will help you discover activities related to what you tap on.
For example, tapping on “find” reveals a selection of choices, such as cafe, airport, bus, gas, ATM and so on. Choosing from the available results, we selected ATM, and the app displayed the location of the nearest one and also included information such as how far away it was by car.
Similarly, choosing eat from the AI app’s main menu brings up various culinary options from around the world. Of these, we chose Italian and were again presented with a choice of places it deemed close enough. This time, however, included with the results were the restaurant’s name, a rating out of a maximum 5 stars, its distance away and whether it was open or closed.
Looking beneath the surface of this AI app, there is a lot of information because drilling further down, you can click on the ratings to see reviews, on the distance to get directions and more.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t an AI app in the sense that you think that Siri or Cortana is. Instead, it is a collection of data pieces which the app cleverly compiles by using location services. This enables it to discover where you are in the world, and, for each activity, determine what is nearby.
However, one negative point is that the results shown to us were not accurate. For example, when tapping eat, the AI app showed the nearest Italian restaurant to be nearly one hour’s drive away, whereas the nearest is less than 10 minutes away by car or probably 20 by bus. But on a positive note, we have had the WNNA app for less than 24 hours and used it for about 30 minutes. So it may not have had time to get used to our local area and become better able to suggest more local activities for each choice.
If you want to give the WNNA app a try, it is available for free on the iOS App Store.
