Apple Acquires AI Startup Voysis, Could Finally Make Siri Smarter

According to Bloomberg, Apple has acquired an Ireland-based startup called Voysis, which specializes in artificial intelligence for digital assistants:

Apple Inc. acquired Voysis, an artificial intelligence startup that developed a platform for digital voice assistants to better understand people’s natural language.

An Apple spokesperson confirmed the acquisition by citing the boilerplate statement it “buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

According to the now-defunct Voysis website, the company says its technology “converts your database to an artificial intelligence your users can talk to – that deeply understands the specifics of your products, services and vocabulary.”

The Voysis platform is based on its “proprietary speech recognition, natural language processing and understanding, deep learning and text-to-speech to power your intelligent Voice AI.”

Founded in 2012, Voysis says it has SDKs for iOS and Android to “easily integrate” into apps, while the tech is also accessible by API or Javascript.

It’s been clear for a while Apple’s Siri assistant needs a lot of work (that’s an understatement). Hopefully, Apple can teach Siri to finally understand what people are saying better soon. #fingerscrossed