Yandex Alice is a personal virtual assistant that simulates a live conversation between you and the device, recognizes spoken and written speech in Russian.
Gives answers to any questions while developing - self-learning.
Today, voice assistants are no longer a novelty, they are available from most well-known companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and others. Now Yandex is one of the corporations that has its own conversational engine with the function of training and development.
You can download Yandex Alice on your PC for free, install, run and just talk to her, for example:
- Hey!
- Hello.
- Who invented this one for you?
- Programmers from the company and many others.
Or you can play with her in the cities, ask her to make the sound louder or quieter, report traffic jams, get directions, call someone, etc.
After downloading and installing the program on a Windows PC, you can activate it by saying: “Listen, Alice!”. Then ask someone to find or report what kind of weather forecast, traffic congestion and more.
You can download Yandex virtual assistant on a computer or laptop for free as a separate utility at the link below, and at this link you can.
Download Alice app
The assistant will prove itself in the best traditions of artificial intelligence, especially if Yandex applications such as Maps, Transport, Weather, Widget, Taxi and others are installed on the user's device. And if there is no mobile program, the assistant will offer to download it to your phone and smartphone / tablet.
Features of using Alice
The main thing is to solve common problems every day. Here the following functionality is available for free on a computer and phone, with which you can:
- search for the necessary information on the network via a PC or Android smartphone / tablet;
- find places and lay routes to them by car, on foot and by public transport;
- find out the weather forecast and much more.
It is integrated by default into all Yandex products and you can launch Alice with a voice command. Without an assistant, you can download the Yandex browser using this link, and you can disable it in already installed applications through the Settings on the main screen.
Owners of the new version of Yandex, designed for Android users, get extended functionality. The voice assistant was named "Alice", it is capable of performing a huge number of useful tasks: it will inform you about the current air temperature, help you find a suitable entertainment venue, and also pave a route to it, answer questions of interest using a network search - and this is far not a complete list of available tasks.
To ask a question or use the help of "Alice", you need to use the dialog box by entering the necessary commands. Moreover, the user can praise his virtual assistant - and Yandex Assistant will certainly thank the owner for this.
The current version of the system still needs some improvement, as its capabilities are severely limited. But in the "Question-answer" mode, it works perfectly - by demanding the data on the work of the selected institution, the user will immediately receive the necessary information. Even if "Alice" does not know the exact answer, she will find the required data on the Internet. If necessary, third-party applications can also be opened that will help find the answer to the question asked.
In some topics, "Alice" will be able to "understand" what is being said. For example, asking a question about the weather, you can later use various refinements to get more detailed information. But this opportunity is not available for all topics.
The developers also took care of how to "revive" the virtual assistant, making an excellent alternative to the popular Siri and Google Assistant. "Alice" is also ready to joke, and can even quote popular compositions if you ask her to sing the song.
So far, only a test version has been launched, so errors are allowed. Yandex Assistant pronounces some words with errors, pronouncing them exactly as they are printed. Some sentences "Alice" reads too seriously, which is also far from always appropriate. But this is a test version, so the shortcomings are quite forgivable.
A new interface is being tested at the moment. All changes and innovations will be known after the completion of this procedure. According to the developers' promises, the new version of Yandex's virtual assistant will be presented to the world and available to users this year.
Today, 10.10.17, a beta version of Yandex-Alice for Windows computers has been released! The best and safest way to download Alice's assistant for Windows is on the Yandex service, here's the safest
Not so long ago, such a well-known search engine as Yandex, released its own voice assistant and it is called very simply - Alice.
I think you are very interested in such things and therefore, I decided to go through the questions that people are most often interested in.
Voice assistant Alice from Yandex - what is it?
Like other similar assistants, she can talk to you and, using voice or text dialogue, give you answers to the questions you need.
Features of the voice assistant Alice from Yandex
Alice does not stand out for anything special and in it you can find all the similar functions that you can find in similar variants from Google or Apple.
Basically, it works with all services from Yandex. If you try to interact with other applications, problems may arise.
All functions can be described with the following points:
- conduct a simple dialogue;
- give answers to various questions;
- everything related to the weather forecast (in different cities, the weather for tomorrow, etc.);
- clarification of the date and day (which is very important);
- any information related to maps (get directions, find out the distance, advice on where to eat, etc.);
- money transactions (find out the exchange rate, transfer from one currency to another, etc.);
- other.
Although we already have a full-fledged version, the assistant still has room to grow, and despite the limited capabilities, the reviews are only positive.
The question is different: "How will it compete with the already existing options?"
How to enable voice assistant Alice from Yandex?
At the moment, there are versions for iOS, Android, Windows (beta) and in the future it is planned to be built into Yandex Browser. 
If you are looking for a version for a mobile device, you can find it in the Yandex application. The developers decided to simply embed the assistant into the ready-made program.
To talk to Alice, you need to do one of these actions (while the Yandex application is running):
- click on the purple round button with a microphone;
- say "Hello Alice".
In both cases, the result is exactly the same and then we start asking questions and Alice starts answering you.
If the assistant does not know how to implement your request, then the Yandex search engine opens with your question and a list of results.
Everything looks like a regular chat. I think there will be some changes in the future, but so far everything looks quite simple and tasteful.
Who voiced Yandex's voice assistant Alice?
Alice is voiced by the very famous actress Tatyana Shitova, and if you do not know who this is, then I can say that she is the voice of Scarlett Johansson in the Russian dub. 
So when watching movies like Ghost in the Shell or Lucy, you can think about Alice and compare the voices. But this is optional.
How to download voice assistant Alice from Yandex on iOS or Android?
If you try to find an assistant simply by entering Alice in the App Store or Google Play search, then the answers will contain the application with the name Yandex.
Do not be alarmed, because this is it. Previously, this program was only about the search engine, but now there is a built-in assistant as well.
It weighs differently for different devices (for example, on the iPhone 5S - just over 60 MB), so it won't take up much space. Here are the links so you don't get confused: 
Friends, in October it is 3 years since the official release of Windows 10, and the voice assistant Cortana integrated into the operating system still does not learn to speak Russian. Until now, a full-time virtual assistant is available only for 15 countries of the world, where the states of the post-Soviet space are not included. Fortunately, a response to Western IT developments has matured in Russia. Now, guys, we have a domestic voice assistant that can be implemented not only in mobile devices, but also in Windows computers, and her name is Alice. Well, friends, let's get to know her.
"Okay, Yandex" instead of Cortana
To solve Cortana's problem 2 years ago, the first search engine of the Runet Yandex took up and offered the Russian-speaking audience a free utility Yandex.Stroka, which integrates an analogue of Cortana into the Windows taskbar - a search engine with the ability to enter voice commands. Yandex.Stroka was created primarily to support Yandex services. Its capabilities included in-wall searches, Internet searches, and getting answers to simple questions like weather or converting values right in the search bar. The utility could be activated by a voice request “Listen, Yandex” or “Okay, Yandex”.
Yandex.Stroka did not make much of an impression on the Russian-speaking audience, and its creators came to the conclusion that the problem lies in the facelessness of the voice assistant. After analyzing the errors, Yandex recently brought the utility to a new format: it improved the functionality and a virtual character named Alice appeared. The updated Yandex.Stroka itself was renamed, calling it simply and unpretentiously - “Voice Assistant for Windows”. Alice is available not only for Windows, but also for iOS and Android mobile devices. In the near future, it is planned to introduce Alice into Yandex Browser and other products of the first Runet search engine.
How Alice works
Alice is embedded in the Windows taskbar and replaces the regular in-system search. When you click on the search bar in the taskbar after implementing the utility, we will see a selection of icons of selected sites extracted from the browser history, popular search queries, as well as buttons for interacting with Alice.
You can activate the virtual assistant by clicking on the microphone icon, as well as phrases - both the old ones that were used for Yandex.String, and new ones - “Okay, Alice”, “Hello, Alice”, “Listen, Alice”. A button with a question icon will display background information about its capabilities.
Like the regular in-system search in Windows 10, the search tool from Yandex is structured in sections. In the section below we will find a certain analogue of the "Start" menu with a selection of standard Windows programs.
And in the last section, we will get access to the folders of the user profile.
Well, now about the essence - what is Alice capable of? Voice assistant from Yandex can:
Go to famous sites;
Run some Windows programs;
Open the requested music on Yandex.Music and Yandex.Radio services;
Provide answers to exact questions on the type of Yandex smart line capabilities directly in the chat;
Turn off, restart and put the computer to sleep;
Give out weather, time, date, news, converted money and other values, information about city traffic jams and public institutions directly in the chat;
Lay routes;
Form search queries and redirect them to the browser.
A serious conversation with Alice, of course, will not work.
With any preponderance of its capabilities, the virtual assistant will immediately send us to a web search engine. There are still many things she doesn't know, which Cortana has already learned - start an alarm clock and a timer, plan something and take notes in a notebook, etc.
Plus, Yandex's brainchild does not always correctly recognize voice requests, does not launch all programs, and does not detect the user's location on Windows devices without GPS. Nevertheless, the developers are making grandiose plans about the new voice assistant. Her project is so serious that Yandex employees, among the key IT developments, demonstrated it to Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to the company. During testing, Vladimir Vladimirovich, traditionally for his role, asked his assistant: "Are you being offended here?"
Who is Alice?
Alice was voiced by the famous actress Tatyana Shitova. It is her voice that is used in the voice engine, through which the virtual assistant communicates with users. Alice is a character with her own character. Initially, Yandex planned to make her a noble girl by loading literary terminology into her vocabulary. But when they realized that this way they made the assistant too boring, the vocabulary system was taken from Twitter. As a result, Alice turned out to be like a witty teenager: she knows how to be daring and even rude on topics she does not like, endowed with a sense of humor and improvises taking into account the context of the questions asked.
Alice's settings
Alice is not in many ways, but a customizable tool. Site icons on the quick access panel can be changed to others from among Yandex services, frequently visited or recently visited sites. Also for the utility you can:
Configure operations with files - their opening in the program or in the explorer folder;
Separate Yandex search tool and chat with Alice with two separate buttons on the Windows taskbar;
Select a browser to open search results.
