Background to the Companions Project

COMPANIONS is a 12.88 million Euro interdisciplinary research project which focuses on combining advanced technologies to create personal, persistent 'agents' or 'Companions'. This will be an agent or 'presence' that stays with the user for long periods of time, developing a relationship and 'knowing' its owners preferences and wishes. It will communicate with the user primarily by using and understanding speech, but also using other technologies such as touch screens and sensors.

In addition to research activity, Companions has an important role in training a new generation of researchers in these interdisciplinary fields, and in raising awareness about persistent agents and the role they can play in society and people's lives.

Background Reading

The Companion

Artificial Companions as a new kind of interface to the future Internet (pdf, 104kb) Oxford Internet Institute Research Report
Yorick Wilks

Companions: a response to a Grand Challenge (GC3) with a revival of something traditional (pdf, 36kb)
Yorick Wilks

Will Companions be conscious? (pdf, 64kb)
Yorick Wilks

Artificial Companions (pdf, 52kb)
Yorick Wilks

The state of the art

Current topics in speech synthesis (pdf, 140kb)
M.Danieli

Dialogue Management (pdf, 204kb)
Y.Wilks, R.Catizone and M.Turunen

Emotion in Human-Agent Interfaces (pdf, 192kb)
P.Wallis, R.Moore, P.Fagerberg, M.Cavazza and Y.Wilks