Semantic Machines Acquired by Microsoft

Microsoft has acquired Semantic Machines, a bold move toward bolstering its conversation AI capabilities. The terms have not been disclosed, but as SFGate.com reports, Semantic Machines is stacked with AI talent.

“Semantic's chief technology officer, Larry Gillick, is a former chief speech scientist for Apple's Siri. Microsoft also name checked the University of California at Berkeley professor Dan Klein and the Stanford University professor Percy Liang,” according to SFGate. But it doesn’t stop there: “Several Semantic staffers also worked at Nuance, the voice-recognition company that once powered Siri. Semantic's chief executive, Dan Roth, is a cofounder of Voice Signal Technologies, which Nuance acquired in 2007.”

In other words, it looks like Microsoft is trying to amass an army of AI talent.