Meet Edna, the smart assistant for Facebook messenger created by a Costa Rican company, Edna is a smart virtual assistant based on artificial intelligence, “like a hybrid between a robot and human being”, and created by Costa Rican company Throne Tech.

The system will be available starting May for use in Facebook Messenger, but its creators are already considering making it available for Whatsapp and regular SMS text messages.

Making reservations, requesting a tow truck, ordering pizza or even buying airline tickets are part of the tasks that Edna could help users with.

As users continue to use Edna, the system gathers information and accumulates data that allows it to understand requests better, to a point where it could even make suggestions or predict requests.

There is no need to download more apps that take up space in your mobile device.

Originally the system was going to be named Genie, but appealing to a more Hispanic audience they opted for EDNA, which is simple to pronounce, write, and easy to remember.

“Edna involves many algorithms working together. Edna will identify the next time you are going to order pizza for example with probability X, you are going to order it from a specific place, she stores the information and feeds from your preferences, in time, this will allow the robot to make suggestions based on these information. We are working on adjustments so that Edna can understand what a user asks to perfection; it will still make some mistakes, so we need to work on those” , explained Kenneth Calderon, its creator.

Edna is not a free service, the user pays for the time Edna takes to process a request. The established fee for now is of $20 USD an hour and it charges by the minute; in other words if a request takes 3 minutes to process the user will be charged $3 USD. Chatting with Edna and making questions is free of charge.

Edna’s website is: www.holaedna.com , here you can find all additional information on how the system works, it even provides examples of requests you can make:

“Find the best doctor and schedule an appointment for this week”
“Buy this book in Amazon and send it to Joe’s office”

In these days where we are balancing many different responsibilities Edna could become your best helper.