Siri, the first virtual personal assistant, emerged from decades of SRI research in artificial intelligence (AI). The technology was developed through the Cognitive Assistant Learning and Organizing (CALO) project led by SRI within DARPA's Personalized Assistant Learning (PAL) program, the largest known artificial intelligence project in U.S. history, and working in conjunction with EPFL, the Swiss institute of technology.
SRI spun off Siri, Inc. in 2007 to bring the technology to consumers, raising $24 million in two rounds of funding.
In April 2010, Apple acquired Siri, and in October 2011, Siri was introduced as an integrated feature of the Apple iPhone 4S.
The person behind Siri in English language, named Susan Bennett, lives in Atlanta, USA, is an actress who has been lending her voice since the 1970s. For example, to give directions in GPSs and as a passenger guide in some airports. The woman who voices Siri in Spanish is called Iratxe Gómez.
Until April 2021, Siri has 21 languages available and even some dialects of Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Sources:
sri.com
Summalinguae.com
Apple.com
Wikipedia
