Apple has acquired a UK-based start-up whose artificial-intelligence software helps computers and people speak to each other in a more natural dialogue, according to people familiar with the deal.
VocalIQ uses machine learning to build virtual assistants that try to recreate the type of talking computers that appear in science-fiction films such as Samantha in Her or Jarvis in Iron Man. The deal marks Apple’s third acquisition of a UK company this year.
Its technology could help Apple to improve Siri, its virtual assistant, as well as further the iPhone maker’s automotive ambitions.
While VocalIQ’s speech processing and machine learning technology could be incorporated into devices from wearables to the connected home, the company was particularly focused on in-car applications. This included a collaboration with General Motors.
In a blog earlier this year, VocalIQ described how a “conversational voice-dialog system” in a car’s navigation system could prevent drivers from becoming distracted by looking at screens. Its “self-learning” technology allows “real conversation between human and the internet of things”, VocalIQ wrote. This would improve on virtual assistants such as Siri, Google Now, Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa, which rely on scripted interactions and can respond only to particular commands.
In another blog, VocalIQ said existing assistants have fallen “well short of consumer expectations”, singling out Siri as a mere “toy”.
VocalIQ, which was spun out of the University of Cambridge’s Dialogue Systems Group, uses deep learning to improve language recognition, with a focus on trying to understand the context in which commands are given. The company is led by chief executive Blaise Thomson, a South Africa-born mathematician, and chairman Steve Young, a professor of Information Engineering at Cambridge. It raised £750,000 in seed funding last year, led by Amadeus Capital Partners, the venture capital firm.
“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” Apple said in a statement confirming the deal. VocalIQ’s team is expected to stay in Cambridge rather than moving to the US group’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.
The VocalIQ acquisition follows two other recent purchases of British companies earlier this year. Apple bought Semetric, maker of the Musicmetric analytics tool for record labels to track online sales and activity on social networks, in January. The following month it acquired Camel Audio, a maker of virtual instruments and synthesiser software, which some have speculated may be used to improve its tools for musicians, Logic Pro X and GarageBand.
VocalIQ is also the second recent acquisition that points to Apple’s growing plans in the automotive market. It acquired Mapsense, a mapping data analytics and visualisation start-up, for about $25m in the summer. Several car companies are already integrating Apple’s CarPlay, a way to display apps and information from an iPhone on the dashboard.
In recent months, Apple has been assembling a team of automotive experts at a secret R&D lab, as it explores electric and autonomous cars, people familiar with its plans have told the Financial Times. Last month, Apple met the California driving regulator to discuss testing of autonomous vehicles, amid reports that it aimed to triple the staff of its car development team.
VocalIQ did not comment on the deal, which was first reported by Cambridge’s Business Weekly.