Luxoft and SoftBank Robotics America create new solution for businesses in North America by improving the end user experience with robotics

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SoftBank Robotics America, Inc. ("SBRA"), the North American arm of SoftBank Robotics Group, and Luxoft Holding Inc. (NYSE:LXFT), a global IT service provider, partnered to build a flexible chat-based platform for Pepper®, the humanoid robot. The collaboration will result in a hybrid local and cloud infrastructure that creates more engaging end-user experiences by enabling developers to connect their existing chat applications to the robots conversational platform. The partnership aims to make robotics technology more accessible to businesses in North America.

"Conversational Pepper is about making consumer-facing robots more accessible to the broader market," said Sam Mantle, Managing Director of Digital Enterprise at Luxoft. "There is a lot of fantastic innovation in the artificial intelligence space, which almost exclusively materialize in voice assistants. This collaboration is a direct initiative to bring those two worlds together in a way that will advance customer interactions in financial services, retail, and hospitality."

"Our partnership with Luxoft will allow us to quickly advance Peppers capabilities and address critical challenges we faced with Pepper over the last two years," said Steve Carlin, Chief Strategy Officer, SBRA. "Luxofts innovative solution reduces the time required to adapt conversations onto Pepper from months to just a few days. We will continue to evolve Peppers platform this year and bring on new partners who will take full advantage of the infrastructure Luxoft created to build new solutions for our customers. "

The new technical infrastructure comes preloaded on Pepper and is now available to all businesses in North America. The solution makes it easier for SBRA clients to bring their cloud-based marketing stacks closer to customers while dramatically reducing engineering costs of working with robots. This ease of use allows companies who lack the resources to build robotic applications to implement Pepper in the workplace and ultimately enhance their bottom line by improving end user experiences in a physical location.

The Luxoft infrastructure will be a key driver in fulling updates to Pepper by:

Allowing for the creation of compelling Pepper conversations using standard cloud services
Alleviating latency issues due to Wi-Fi constraints and other environmental considerations
Streamlining and reducing processing time so conversations between Pepper and user are faster, creating a more natural conversation experience
Lowering total cost of ownership by allowing for third-party application plugins to create dynamic conversational campaigns for Pepper
Pre-built greeter module and web CMS for SMB usages that welcomes visitors to a business, informs employees of their arrival and answers guest questions.
SoftBank Robotics America selected Luxoft to build a flexible infrastructure for Pepper because of its combined delivery and engineering expertise across AI, Internet of Things, and Human-Centered Design; all critical competencies in robotic application development.

About SoftBank Robotics America, Inc.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, SoftBank Robotics America, Inc. is driving technology forward by becoming a leader in humanoid robotics. Our robots, Pepper and NAO® are used in more than 70 countries worldwide to assist, empower, and benefit people in the fields of research, education, retail, healthcare, banking, hospitality, and entertainment. Unified under the SoftBank brand in 2016, SoftBank Robotics has offices in Paris, Tokyo, San Francisco, and Shanghai. Together, our team of over 500 employees is working hard to define the future of technology, ushering in a new era of robotics designed to advance the human experience.

About Luxoft

Luxoft (NYSE:LXFT) is a global IT service provider of innovative technology solutions that delivers measurable business outcomes to multinational companies. Its offerings encompass strategic consulting, custom software development services, and digital solution engineering. Luxoft enables companies to compete by leveraging its multi-industry expertise in the financial services, automotive, communications, and healthcare & life sciences sectors. Its managed delivery model is underpinned by a highly-educated workforce, allowing the Company to continuously innovate upwards on the technology stack to meet evolving digital challenges.

Luxoft has more than 13,100 employees across 41 cities in 20 countries within five continents, with its operating headquarters office in Zug, Switzerland. For more information, please visit the website.