Nokia launches a voice assistant, but it isn’t for you.

Early today, Nokia announced MIKA, which stands for Multi-Purpose Intuitive Knowledge Assistant. The system is meant to provide engineers with adequate knowledge by just asking the assistant, rather than searching through archives.

MIKA is powered by the Nokia AVA database, a collection of fixes and documented industry practices which will now be available at the touch of a button, thus saving precious time and energy, which could be put to better use.

Igor Leprince, head of Global Services at Nokia, said :   "Finding the right information is a daily challenge for telco engineers tasked with boosting network quality. MIKA taps into the power of the Nokia AVA platform to provide quick and accurate answers, avoiding time wasted on fruitless searches. MIKA is customized to support the specific needs of telecoms, and can deliver recommendations based on experience from networks around the world." 

In addition to launching MIKA, Nokia introduces Predictive Repair, a service that will enable operators to reduce costs and improve network quality by moving away from break-fix approaches (meaning: ‘don’t fix it if it ain’t broken approach’) to hardware maintenance. This care service can predict hardware failures and recommend replacements up to 14 days in advance, with up to 95 percent accuracy. These recommendations will allow operators to improve efficiency by avoiding unnecessary site visits, wasted operations efforts, excessive inventory, and false 'No Fault Found' returns.

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The Predictive Repair is an industry first, and utilizes the vast knowledge repository that Nokia has gathered over the years on hardware issues, and if it works out, could make networks much more efficient.

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MIKA will be available as a mobile application as well as in a browser version, to be used on the go.

While it is interesting to see Nokia come up with new tech again, what we are not happy about is that how this move distances mainstream consumers. As Nokia loyalists, they intend to have firsthand rights on the homegrown voice assistant. But perhaps, after successful application in the field, the technology will soon power, personal assistants the likes of Siri , the OK Google and Frenemy Cortana.