Celia (virtual assistant)

Celia
Developer(s)Huawei
Initial release27 April 2020; 4 years ago (2020-04-27)
Operating system
Platform
Available in
TypeAI Virtual assistant
Websiteconsumer.huawei.com/en/emui/celia/

Celia is an artificially intelligent virtual assistant developed by Huawei for their latest HarmonyOS and Android-based EMUI smartphones that lack Google Services and a Google Assistant.[1][2][3][4] The assistant can perform day-to-day tasks, which include making a phone call, setting a reminder and checking the weather. It was unveiled on 7 April 2020 and got publicly released on 27 April 2020 via an OTA update solely to selected devices that can update their software to EMUI 10.1.[5][6][7]

Huawei had initially referred to the new assistant in late 2019 by having announced that there would be an English version of their already Chinese speaker assistant—Xiaoyi—to be released into the European markets.[8][9] Due to the on-going China–United States trade war, the company's newly released smartphones were left without any Google services, including the loss of Google Assistant. This subsequently led to the development and release of Celia.[10][11][12]

AI technology is integrated into the software of Celia, which allows it to translate text using a phones camera and to identify everyday objects — similar to that of Google Lens.

  1. ^ "Huawei's Celia". Android Authority. Archived from the original on 27 March 2020.
  2. ^ "International Voice Assistant Releases". TrendHunter.com. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  3. ^ "Huawei Launches Its Own Personal Assistant, That Sounds A Lot Like Apple's". Android Headlines. 26 March 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  4. ^ "Meet Celia, Huawei's own voice assistant". Speed Magazine. 20 May 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  5. ^ "The exciting new features of the Huawei P40 Lite – MyBroadband". Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  6. ^ "Celia arrives on the Huawei P40 range". Gsmarena. Archived from the original on 30 June 2020.
  7. ^ "Huawei Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro get stable upgrade to EMUI 10.1". Notebookcheck. Retrieved 31 May 2020.[permanent dead link]
  8. ^ Schoon, Ben (26 March 2020). "Huawei's 'Celia' tries to replace Google Assistant, also wakes nearby iPhones". 9to5Google. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  9. ^ "Huawei launch's its own assistant and it's called Celia". Bizidev.
  10. ^ "Huawei's Celia Voice Assistant Replaces Google Assistant, but Not Google Apps, on New P40 Smartphones". Voicebot.ai. 26 March 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  11. ^ "Huawei's Celia voice assistant is now available on EMUI 10.1 on the Huawei P40". xda-developers. 19 May 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  12. ^ "Huawei Celia the is alternative to Google Assistant | Rapid Mobile". rapidmobile.biz. 26 March 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.