First-ever Intelligent Assistants Conference held in SF

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Whether it's Siri or Google Now, chances are you've talked to a computer lately. And just maybe it said something useful in return. On Tuesday, what's billed as the first conference about these virtual assistants, was held in San Francisco with an eye toward making them even smarter.

In the beginning, Siri was easy to make fun of. But she grew up fast.

"Understanding natural speech is remarkably difficult," said Norman Winarsky, one of Siri's creators.

At the first-ever Intelligent Assistants Conference, he said that the way she got so much smarter was practice.

"Once you have massive amounts of data, you can get better answers, better accuracy, people will use it more and you'll get more data," said Winarsky.

Now Siri has company from Google and Microsoft.

Like Siri, Microsoft made the deliberate move to give Cortana personality.

"By giving it personality, by giving it this ability to tell jokes or be funny, we do see people actually using the engine and using the service more," said Microsoft Search Director Stefan Weitz.

But just as you were really starting to get to know Siri or Cortana, there's a whole new cast of characters emerging -- characters with names like Chip and Dom.

Dom is the new assistant in the Domino's Pizza app. They say customers love him and he's good for business.

"Because customers don't feel rushed, they feel like they can browse the menu and get exactly what they want, often times we do see customer ending up with a higher ticket," said Domino's Pizza Marketing Vice President Dennis Maloney.

Dom is powered by Nuance, the same company said to provide Siri's voice recognition. Their goal is simple -- a real conversation.

"The same as calling up and talking to a person," said Nuance Enterprise General Manager Robert Weideman. "If they don't have enough information, they should be able to ask you for more information in order to get the transaction done."

Or soon, even argue about it.

"You can ask, 'why did I get a fee?'" Winarsky said. "The answer would be, 'well, your balance was inadequate.'"

If that's not enough, consider this -- soon, the assistants will talk to each other:

Bloom: "So Dom and Cortana could be good buddies?"

Weitz: "Oh, they're already best friends, I'm sure."