Apple reportedly bolstered its Siri digital assistant with the acquisition of Voysis, an AI start-up which aims to improve how software responds to human voice commands.
Neither company offered an official statement, however an Apple representative told Bloomberg, which broke news of the tie-up, it “buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans”.
A Voysis company webpage has been pulled down. Financial terms of the deal were not reported.
Voysis, which is based in Dublin, developed technology to improve digital voice assistants and sold its services to several companies since it was founded in 2012.
Specifically, Voysis helps companies using shopping applications to respond better to voice commands, narrowing searches based on a few short phrases.
Bloomberg reported the company’s system uses WaveNet, an AI-based technology first developed by Google’s DeepMind.
For Apple, the company could look to use Voysis to help Siri better understand natural language, as it looks to compete with Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa.
There is also scope for Apple to integrate Voysis’ tech into hundreds of third-party apps which already integrate with Siri.
The deal represents Apple’s second acquisition in the last week, following its buy of the Dark Sky [1] weather app.
[1] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/apps/news-apps/apple-app-buy-puts-android-users-under-a-cloud/
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