Chumenwenwen has worked with the makers of up to 100 applications including Didi, the ride-hailing app, the group-buying Internet sites Dianping and Alibaba's Taobao to provide data for the search engine.

It can also push individualized information to users by dint of being aware of the searches a user has made previously, such as about weather, travel information and news.

In October, Google Inc bought a share in the company by investing an undisclosed amount in it, taking the total invested in Chumenwenwen to $75 million.

Central to creating artificial intelligence is teaching machines how to learn, Li Zhifei says. That means that when a machine masters the ability to acquire knowledge and to accumulate experience, it can be just as mentally adept and adroit as humans, adjusting itself to deal with new problems, situations and requests.

Gavenraj Sodhi, chief executive officer of Senses Labs in Shenzhen, says his team of 10 is developing robots that will help children learn. Sodhi started the artificial intelligence company two years ago, before which he worked in enterprise security division for Oracle Corporation in Beijing.

"We're building the robots for Chinese children aged between 4 and 7," he says. General education at school kills children's creativity, Sodhi says, adding that the situation in China is serious.

The robots, the size of 2-year-old child, will be a small companion for children, helping them improve English pronunciation and to do homework, such as correcting writing and analyzing questions. The robots will go on the market in the middle of next year, Senses Labs says.

Sodhi says the robots can recognize children's emotions from facial expressions when, for example, they return from school.

"Robots will ask how their school day was and will communicate with the children. We hope robots will be able to grow up with children as a companion, knowing about the children because they will be able to learn."

The robots could "also be helpful for children with autism", he says.

There is a demand not only for robotic assistants that can help with the humdrum issues of life, but for those that "want" to solve emotional problems, because they have been taught to understand human emotions and can ease mental and emotional burdens with the help of their friendly, reassuring and non-judgmental synthesized voice.

That scene echoes the doings of the operating system Samantha in the Hollywood movie Her, with whom the main character strikes up an understanding relationship after divorcing his wife.