Big companies acquire AI startups to lead the artificial intelligence market

Artificial intelligence is evolving unprecedently. From smart digital assistants to autonomous cars, this technology is touching every aspect of life and work. Extending beyond a science-fiction anecdote, AI is prevalent today and can encompass anything from Google's search algorithms to IBM's Watson and autonomous weapons. Many big tech giants are making big leaps toward artificial intelligence by acquiring and merging with AI companies and startups. Here, we will look at the tech giants' AI ambitions.

Microsoft 

Microsoft has recently announced that it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire AI firm Nuance for US$56 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at US$19.7 billion. This acquisition will combine solutions and expertise to deliver new cloud and AI capabilities across healthcare and other industries. Nuance provides AI expertise and customer engagement solutions across Interactive Voice Response (IVR), virtual assistants, and digital and biometric solutions to companies across all industries worldwide. This expertise will come together with the breadth and depth of Microsoft's cloud, including Azure, Teams, and Dynamics 365, to deliver next-generation customer engagement and security solutions.

Facebook

Social network giant Facebook builds AI-driven mapping for augmented and virtual realities. Last February, the company had acquired London-based computer vision startup Scape Technologies for US$40 million. Scape uses AI to build a real-time 3D map of the world from standard images and videos. The AR/VR team at Facebook, Facebook Reality Labs, in September 2019, announced LiveMaps, an initiative to develop a virtual representation of the physical world. As per the Reality Labs, LiveMaps is the core infrastructure that will underpin tomorrow's AR experiences.

Amazon

Amazon is making significant leaps towards AI-powered self-driving cars, announced to buy early-stage developer of self-driving cars Zoox, in a deal estimated at US$1.2 billion. Since 2014, Zoox has been developing an autonomous "bi-directional" vehicle that has no steering wheel or discernible front or rear end and can move in either direction. The prototype vehicle has not been publicly revealed but was slated to go into testing this year. Self-driving vehicles could play a big part in Amazon's huge delivery infrastructure.

Amazon's approach to artificial intelligence is called a flywheel. The flywheel approach at Amazon keeps AI innovation humming along and boosts energy and knowledge to spread to other areas of the company. Furthermore, Amazon Echo, which features AI bot Alexa, has been one of the company's most popular forays into machine learning.

Apple

Apple is now battling the AI race with Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Baidu and other companies. Last year, the company acquired Xnor.ai, an AI software developer for mobile devices, for a reported US$200 million. The acquisition was expected to lead to AI applications running directly on iPhones, iPads, etc., not outsourced to the cloud, which would make these tasks more private and quicker. Apple was early to the voice technology space with its acquisition of Siri in 2010 for US$250 million. Since then, the digital assistant has faced surged competition from Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and others. Consequently, Apple entered into AI startups' acquisition foray and continues to purchase startups to improve Siri's language understanding and accuracy.

Apple acquired Voysis, a Dublin-based startup that built natural language, conversational interfaces that could run directly on mobile devices, aimed at supporting rich natural language interactions between brands and users. In recent years, Apple has made numerous moves to position itself to find new areas of growth as iPhone sales reportedly fall.

Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and other big tech giants make AI acquisitions with a vision to enhance existing products and enter new markets.