Siris Creators Demonstrate an Assistant That Takes the Initiative

An SRI project aims to build a powerful predictive assistant for office workers.

In a small, dark, room off a long hallway within a sprawling complex of buildings in Silicon Valley, an array of massive flat-panel displays and video cameras track Grit Denkers every move. Denker, a senior computer scientist at the nonprofit R&D institute SRI, is showing off Bright, an intelligent assistant that could someday know what information you need before you even ask.