Curt Kolcun, a nearly 28-year veteran of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and two-time Wash100 Award recipient, has been appointed chairman at XappMedia’s artificial intelligence business, GovCon Wire has learned.
Kolcun helped establish Xapp AI in a push to drive the development of conversational AI technology for applications such as call centers and chatbots.
His career at Microsoft included time as vice president of the technology company's public sector business, federal consulting practice manager and E-Government director.
He previously held engineering positions at legal education and training provider NBI Inc. before joining Microsoft in November 1989. He also served as a sergeant at the U.S. Air Force from 1979 to 1983.
Xapp AI aims to leverage automatic speech recognition, natural language processing and data-driven machine learning approaches as part of its “optimal conversation” framework to develop AI interaction models.
Washington, D.C.-based Xapp Media hired Kolcun early last year as an advisory board member to help the voice app developer expand its presence in the federal space. According to the company, it helps consumer brands and media companies manage voice apps that run on digital assistant programs created by Microsoft, Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOGL).
