“Alice, what’s new?” — Yandex introduces Alice AI

At the “Alice, what's new?” conference today, Yandex introduced Alice AI — a powerful, universal neural network that can help users solve almost any task in chat. Its usefulness and capabilities, compared to other AI products available in Russia, have been tested on thousands of real use cases. Alice AI now supports a new response format with images, videos, and useful information from Yandex Maps. Soon, it will be able to remember a user's schedule, send reminders, and carry out tasks through AI agents. The new neural network is now available at alice.yandex.ru, in the Alice and Search apps, and will soon help users across all sites and tabs in Browser and in Yandex Go.

Getting Things Done in Chat with Alice AI

Alice AI was trained on millions of tasks that people handle every day using neural networks, assistants, Search, and other Yandex services. It excels at practical tasks and outperforms all other neural networks available in Russia in answering questions in the categories of Education, Personal Growth & Advice, Professional Tasks, and Household Tasks & How-tos, covering the main AI needs that exist now or are likely to appear soon for Russian-speaking users.

Soon, Alice AI will help users turn a stream of thoughts and ideas into to-do lists, shopping lists, notes, and reminders, appearing right in chat in the “My Memory” section. For example, you can speak to Alice AI on the go to record tasks, and it will remember everything, organize it, and remind you of the important things at the right time. In addition to text responses, it now provides expanded multimodal answers, including images, videos, links, and organizations.

Alice AI is powered by a new family of generative models, which includes Yandex's most powerful enhanced models — now named Alice AI LLM, Alice AI Art, and Alice AI VLM. This model family will expand over time — for example, a model for image editing will be available soon.

AI Agents

Soon, Alice AI will feature AI agents that help it carry out user requests. For example, you'll be able to ask it to book a restaurant table, find a product at the best price, or conduct research and provide a file with the results. It will find the necessary resources, navigate interfaces, compare options, and fill out forms. The user only needs to confirm that everything is correct. Alice AI is the first neural network in Russia capable of completing an end-to-end task on a user's request — from information gathering to the final result. 

Alice AI in Yandex Browser

Alice AI will soon help with tasks in Yandex Browser by using information from the active tab — whether it's a text document or a video. No need to provide extra context for your questions. For example, you'll be able to ask whether a 500-page PDF report contains sales data for June, or what a lecturer said in a video about black holes. You can explore the topic further in the same chat — Аlice AI will browse the internet and find the answer. Additionally, Alice AI can now appear in the Browser's smart bar, and your chat history is available on the start page, so you can continue the conversation right where you left off.

Alice AI in the City

Soon, Alice AI will help city residents book a taxi, arrange deliveries, and order food or groceries. AI agents will appear in Yandex Go and perform these actions on command. In this case, Alice AI analyzes your request, determines which service can handle the task, and connects the appropriate agent — Taxi, Food, Lavka, or Delivery. For example, if you say, “Alice, I need to send my friend a cake,” it will summon the Delivery agent, who will confirm all the details, select the best rate, and pre-fill the order form.

Alice AI in Wearables

Yandex announced wearable AI devices with Alice AI as a way to interact with the “My Memory” service. With these devices, users can dictate thoughts and ideas to Alice AI on the go, without taking out their smartphone, and it will turn them into lists, notes, and reminders, saving everything in “My Memory”. These can later be reviewed in chat with Alice AI or via the device's voice interface.

New Alice AI features will be introduced gradually. The new response format is already available in chat with Alice AI. AI agents, the “My Memory” section, and Alice AI in Yandex Go will appear soon — along with the ability to get answers based on the page currently open in the Browser. You can already interact with Alice AI in the smart bar and review your chat history on the Browser's start page. To be among the first to try the new features, sign up for the waitlist in the Alice app or at alice.yandex.ru.