(Yicai Global) July 13 -- Global tech giant Microsoft will spin off its Chinese chatbot business in the next few months to improve its commercial use.

Microsoft Executive Vice President Harry Shum will lead Microsoft Xiaoice as its chairman, the Washington-headquartered firm said in a statement on its Chinese website today. The parent will authorize the spinout to use the related intellectual property.

Li Di, former head of the Xiaoice team, will serve as the company's chief executive. Chen Zhan will continue to head the operation of the social chatbot's Japanese version, known as Rinna, as the Japanese unit's general manager.

Xiaoice, which makes use of natural language processing and computer vision, was launched by Microsoft Asia Internet Academy of Engineering in 2014. Its latest version has 660 million users and an eight one is expected to be released next month.

Editor: Emmi Laine