Low Power Always-on listening Artificial Intelligence (AI) System

A method of continuously monitoring speech for preemptive or context-aware answers to user queries, comprising:

• collecting, in a low-power always-on listening mode operating on a processing system in a computing device, ambient audio data and storing the collected ambient audio data and activation timestamps in an audio buffer as buffered audio data;
• determining a confidence score based on a result of analyzing the buffered audio data for linguistic cues or non-linguistic cues;
• and
• activating a high-power listening mode and providing a last portion of the audio buffer to the high-power mode for instant context-aware assistance in response to determining that the confidence score exceeds a threshold value.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon processor-executable software instructions configured to cause a processing system in a computing device to perform operations for continuously monitoring speech for preemptive or context-aware answers to user queries, the operations comprising:

• collecting, in a low-power always-on listening mode operating, ambient audio data and storing the collected ambient audio data and activation timestamps in an audio buffer as buffered audio data;
• determining a confidence score based on a result of analyzing the buffered audio data for linguistic cues or non-linguistic cues;
• and
• activating a high-power listening mode and providing a last portion of the audio buffer to the high-power mode for instant context-aware assistance in response to determining that the confidence score exceeds a threshold value.

A computing device, comprising:

• means for collecting, in a low-power always-on listening mode, ambient audio data and storing the collected ambient audio data and activation timestamps in an audio buffer as buffered audio data;
• means for determining a confidence score based on a result of analyzing the buffered audio data for linguistic cues or non-linguistic cues;
• and
• means for activating a high-power listening mode and providing a last portion of the audio buffer to the high-power mode for instant context-aware assistance in response to determining that the confidence score exceeds a threshold value.