Once Ahead Of Amazon: An Interview With CEO Of SOVA
Stanislav Ashmanov, General Director of the company “Ashmanov Neural Networks” and “Nanosemantics”, CEO of SOVA, is talking about his approach to the organization of the workplace, the violation of privacy, and how his project could outstrip that of Amazon.
“There are two types of people: those who are ready to take on responsibility, and those who aren’t. If you study this for many years, then gradually you will learn to be responsible not only for yourself, but also for tens, even hundreds of people. This is a skill which is developed with time”, Stanislav Ashmanov.
Stas, why did you decide to start your own company? With your background, you could have easily established yourself in any large IT company, but you chose a more difficult path.
In my opinion, it’s more auspicious to do your own thing. There are more opportunities and there are no boundaries, no ceiling that you will ever reach and get stuck under, ultimately being unable to progress.
In general, I like to organize people into a structure that will make money and create new designs. Rationally speaking, I see better prospects in this, rather than if I had worked for some corporation.
Did you start alone?
I started in partnership with Igor Modyayev, our technical director. First, we worked on mobile apps; we made applications for iPhone and Android. When we first started working, we didn’t even have an office. We would just all get together whenever we had some new work. We started to look for clients in the area of neural networks and machine learning, because we saw a promising field in which we had knowledge.
In 2015, it was only the two of us. By 2016 there were four of us. By 2017, eight. And now, there are sixteen. This means that every year we grow two times bigger, and so far revenues have also followed along that same path.
When did you receive your first large order?
Our first large order came in 2016. It was for a big mobile application for the two main Operating Systems and we only had one month to make it. It was our first big order off of which we made money, and that allowed us to hire more people.
In March 2018 you were appointed as the director of the company “Nanosemantics” (founded in 2005 by Igor Ashmanov, the father of Stanislav, where they were engaged in the development of interactive interfaces and chatbots for business — author’s note). What was the reason for this?
The previous director got tired and said that they didn’t know how to move forward, they didn’t know how to grow a business so that there would be more orders, and so that revenues would increase. My father then asked for help with these general matters. So I became the General Director because of the experience I had from “Ashmanov Neural Networks”. Now we work in one office, actively interacting. This kind of synergy comes from the fact that we have two teams working really close to each other.
What kind of results have you been able to achieve?
Well to start, the atmosphere in the company has completely changed. The company has gotten some new energy simply from me coming in. I’ve begun to understand that with fresh eyes, I assessed what was already there, changed some things, and started some new processes.
Basically, the team was revived. New projects are happening, new products are being made, and everything has started to move faster. Last year the company had very weak PR, attended very few conferences, and didn’t write any articles on specialized resources. I brought in a new approach to marketing and worked with the commercial department. We started account manager training, so that they could deal with additional sales for their clients. Bonuses to the commercial department were raised so that they would be more interested.
We are now looking for new markets, watching the direction of the United Arab Emirates as well as China. Previously, “Nanosemantics” only worked in the Russian Commonwealth. But this technology is actually multilingual, meaning we can make chatbots for any country.
Prior to “Nanosemantics” and “Neural Networks”, you took part in the creation of the robot assistant, Lexy. What was the experience like and what was the result of Lexy?
Lexy has a very long history. Once there was a company called “Nanosemantics” which my father created because he wanted have a conversational artificial intelligence that could sort out business problems as well as those of ordinary people. Almost immediately he had an idea: why not make it not only in text form, but also in voice?
I wasn’t a part of the project then, just watching from the sides. We found some talented people who made the first virtual assistant prototype. But, in 2013 an argument arose between the team and Igor Ashmanov and they left, taking the technology, people, and with them, the project itself.
I found different people for the job and decided that it was time to join the team myself. I was interested in getting not only managerial experience, but also experience with software development.
We came up with the name “Lexy”, from the word “lexicon”, because it was a project dealing with linguistics, communication in a natural language. For the project, I programmed, taught “Lexy” new functions, and actively participated in all processes because we were a small startup.
So, you were ahead of Yandex (the 5th largest search engine worldwide located in Russia — author’s note) with their “smart” assistant?
We were actually ahead of Amazon. This project was started in 2010 and at that time Amazon still hadn’t even started planning their virtual assistant. But we didn’t have enough resources to promote the project. Technically, we brought it to mass production: we had molds for housings, motherboards and microphone arrays. We had all of that, and still do, but for large-scale production by the tens, hundreds, thousands of copies, you need a large amount of money just to establish sales channels.
“Every time some new device comes out, it’s incredibly hard to convince people that it’s something they need. You have to prove to people that they will get some kind of benefit from it. If the device really is useful, then it will stick around and that’s what’s happening with smart assistants at the moment.”
Are you planning to complete this project anytime soon?
I have this immense desire to close this gestalt. Actually, when I was put in charge of “Nanosemantics”, I realized that if I united “Neural Networks”, Nanosemantics”, and “Lexy”, we could make so much more than just a “smart assistant”. That’s how the SOVA project was born. It’s a smart assistant, virtual assistant, and holistic platform for the creation of different voice assistants and intelligence modules.
What will set the SOVA Virtual Assistant apart from Alisa (a Russian intelligent personal assistant developed by Yandex) and Amazon Alexa?
One of the main reasons that we decided on this work, was the privacy of user data. We don’t like that devices sit in people’s homes, listen to everything, and then use that information to invade their privacy. These cases are a violation of privacy. We built the project on the fact that we won’t use the user’s personal data to bring in money. Data will be stored decentrally or locally on the user’s own device. What this means is, purely on the architecture of the project, we won’t have access to the data unless the user themselves allows us.
What functions do you plan to give the SOVA Voice Assistant? How can it be useful to the public?
Voice assistants are a pretty standard thing right now. Apple, Google, and other corporations all have their own. Each has their own different functions and accents as well. There’s a smart secretary function which can remind you about something or give you some information about the exchange rate or the weather. There are even entertainment functions. And we are certainly oriented toward children: there are learning materials presented in the form of games. There is also integration with smart homes: we support work with bulbs, sockets, household appliances, and other electronics.
If you’re not planning to earn money from advertisements, how will you?
That’s a good question. Our economic plan is simple. We are planning to introduce our own currency — a token — for which all transactions will be made. The actual platform and app will be free and intelligence modules will be available for purchase on the SOVA Market. For every module purchased, we will receive a commission.
The second instance the token can be used is on the speech recognition network. Miners install our software and are ready to recognize speech on request. Devices that don’t have powerful processors send a request to the decentralized network, the miners recognize the speech using our software, and send the results back to the device. For this, they will receive a small payment of tokens. And we, as the technology provider, will also receive a small commission from it.
How do you plan to expand this project in Russia and are you planning to enter the international market?
We are certainly oriented, firstly, to the American and Chinese markets. But at the same time, because we are Russian, we will have the support of the Russian language. It is actually a good thing, that Yandex released their own smart assistant. It’s given us the opportunity to observe from the outside, how new devices will take in Russia, to assess the response of the audience.
Of course for us, big success is on the horizon, if users use our voice assistant instead of Siri, Google Assistant, and others. We want to form a community around the SOVA project which, like us, is also worried about Internet security. Moreover, every user can take part in the creation of a truly intelligent artificial intelligence by teaching his assistant new knowledge and languages. So, together, we can create AI that thinks as close to human thinking as possible.
You can support Stanislav, the whole team and SOVA project. The least you can do is to write us a couple of kind words or give a piece of advice. Tell you friends about SOVA. And dont’t forget to clap=)
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