Apple has acquired Voysis, an artificial intelligence startup that developed a platform for digital voice assistants to better understand people’s natural language, according to Bloomberg News.
Voysis’s system taps into Wavenets, an AI-based method for creating more human-like computer speech that was first developed by Google’s DeepMind in 2016. Voysis co-founder Peter Cahill said in 2018 that his company managed to shrink its system to the point where, once the AI is trained, the software uses as little as 25 megabytes of memory — about the same size as four Apple Music songs. That made it much easier to run on smartphones without an internet connection.
Apple could use the acquired know-how improve Siri’s understanding of natural language or to offer the Voysis platform to thousands of developers that already integrate with the Apple digital assistant.
MacDailyNews Take: Siri is miles better in recent years, but still sometimes struggles to understand what we’re asking for when we request very specific songs from HomePod. This sounds like something Voysis’ tech could improve.