Chinese artificial intelligence pioneer Xiaoice is showcasing its technological prowess with a raft of new features including a new AI-enabled social app, progress in natural language processing technologies and an upgraded AI ability to draw traditional Chinese paintings.

The moves are part of Xiaoice's ambition to be a platform to power new generation AI-enabled human-machine interactions.

Harry Shum, chairman of Xiaoice and a former senior executive of US tech giant Microsoft, said with technological progress everyone will have a personal AI assistant in the future.

The number of AI units is likely to exceed the entire global population in the future because people may need different AI units to satisfy their different demands in the future, and Xiaoice wants to be the platform to power them, Shum said.

Earlier this week, Xiaoice unveiled a new social app – Xiaoice Island, where users can create their own AI friends and interact with virtual characters in immersive experiences, said Li Di, CEO of Xiaoice. The app integrates Xiaoice's abilities to let AI systems compose and sing songs, draw paintings and edit videos. Xiaoice's AI system has also helped to comfort lonely people as virtual "girlfriends" and "boyfriends" in China.

In July of 2020, Xiaoice was spun off from Microsoft to become a separate company headquartered in Beijing, as it aims to accelerate the pace of local innovation and commercialization.

Xiaoice said it now functions as voice-activated virtual assistants in more than 1 billion units of smart hardware, including smartphones and smart speakers, through its partnership with Xiaomi Corp, Oppo, Vivo and other companies.

Boasting 160 million monthly active users, Xiaoice has also reached cooperation agreements with automobile companies like NIO and BMW.