Microsoft acquires California-based AI startup Semantic Machines

Microsoft today announced that it has acquired Semantic Machines.Inc which is a California-based company that has developed a revolutionary new approach to building conversational AI. The company's tech uses machine learning to enable users to discover, access and interact with information and services in a much more natural way. On the other hand, Microsoft too has breakthroughs in the fundamental building blocks of conversational AI which includes speech recognition and natural language understanding. With this new acquisition, Microsoft is aiming to expand its vision of computers where they could see, hear talk and understand as humans. The company says that today there are more than 1 million developers using its Microsoft Cognitive Services and more than 300,000 developers using Azure Bot Service, all helping to make computing more conversational. The company also mentioned that it is working on improving its work on conversational AI on its voice assistant 'Cortana', as well as with social chatbots like XiaoIce. It is also the first to add full-duplex voice sense to a conversational AI system for more natural sounding conversations. The company said that it will establish a conversational AI center of excellence in Berkeley. It will combine the Semantic Machines’ technology with Microsoft’s own AI advances to deliver powerful, natural and more productive user experiences. Source