Chinese international property portal Juwai.com and Macau-based artificial intelligence and service robot pioneer Singou Technology Ltd. have signed a new partnership that will see Juwai.com deploy Singou’s AI engine to enhance the consumer service it provides to Chinese international property buyers.
Juwai.com will also begin distributing to the property industry and to homeowners the robot Butler 1, Singou’s newest model.
The two companies will spend the next several months training the Singou AI engine using the data and insights that Juwai.com has gathered in its five years of serving Chinese international property buyers.
The same artificial intelligence is part of the brain that will operate the Butler 1 when it is deployed in the offices of international property marketers. This will empower these real estate agents and developers to serve Chinese consumers — even when no one on their staff speaks Mandarin.
During the training period, early robots will be deployed at international property industry events in China and in showrooms and offices in five other countries: Malaysia, Singapore, the USA, Australia, and Canada or the UK. This experience will provide further data and inputs to train the artificial intelligence engine.
Singou Technology has deployed earlier models of robots to provide security and access control at the premises of large facilities, such as convention centres, universities, and transit centres. The company’s robots won an award in November 2017 at the Shanghai International Service Robot Show.
China installed 90,000 industrial robots between 2010 and 2015, according to Machine Design magazine. That is one-third of the world’s total and more than the U.S, Europe, and the rest of Asia combined, which together installed 80,000. China year, estimates the International Federation of Robotics, will install 160,000 robots next. Most will be used in factories, but service robots like Butler 1 are being built in ever greater quantities.
Carrie Law, CEO of Juwai.com, the No. 1 Chinese international real estate website and exclusive international real estate partner to Chinese online giant Tencent, said:
“Juwai.com is excited to be partnering with such an innovative company as Singou and its inspiring leader Dr. Hon Chi Tin. We want to leverage this partnership with Singou to provide better service to Chinese international property buyers and our international property marketing customers.
“This partnership helps Juwai.com achieve two strategic goals: providing better consumer service ourselves and also helping our real estate marketer customers to do the same for the Chinese consumers who visit their offices.
“Singou’s AI chatbot engine will enable Juwai.com to improve and scale the service we provide to consumers. We will use the AI and chatbot to crunch data, handle basic requests, and speed processing.
“The robot is essentially a carrier that lets our AI consumer service engine be present in real estate sales offices anywhere in the world. The robot has the same AI brain and intelligence as our chatbot. With Singou’s Butler 1 robot, international property marketers can provide high quality service to Chinese buyers.
“It’s natural that we turned to a company from greater China for this partnership. China plans to be the global leader in artificial intelligence and robotics by 2030 and is investing heavily in the field. China’s core AI industries should be worth, the State Council believes, US$50 billion by 2025. China already installs more robots per year than Europe, the US, and the rest of Asia combined.
Dr. Hon Chi Tin, Chief Executive Officer of Singou Technology, also Guest Associate Professor of Macau University of Science and Technology, said, “This partnership with Juwai.com is very exciting because they are the leaders in international property buying.
“Juwai.com has a large data set on that can be abstracted into artificial intelligence with the strong experience of Singou technology and then put to use serving customers in smarter ways.
“As for customer service in remote locations, a robot is superior to a fixed device, smart speaker, or smart furniture. A robot has all the same benefits, plus the great advantage of being able to move and approach people just like another person would.
“Our new Butler 1 model of robot is designed to serve consumers and thus be much more approachable and affordable than our existing models. The new model will cost only about US$2,000 and stands about 1.4 meters (4’7″) tall.”
