Apple just bought another AI startup to help Siri catch up to rivals Amazon and Google
Although Apple doesn't disclose the purpose behind its acquisitions, Bloomberg reports that Inductiv's engineering team is working on Siri, data science, and machine learning. Apple launched Siri back in 2011 on the iPhone 4S, long before Amazon introduced Alexa and Google launched the Google Assistant.
But Apple's voice-activated helper has largely been considered as lagging behind those made by Amazon and Google, in part because Amazon's and Google's assistants have excelled in general knowledge compared with Siri and are compatible with a broader range of third-party services. Apple has made a push to improve Siri in recent years as voice assistants have become more common in the home and elsewhere. Apple's iOS 13 software for iPhones, which it launched in September, brought several enhancements to Siri, for example.
Such improvements include a more natural-sounding voice, more intelligence for offering suggestions in apps like Safari and Podcasts, and the ability to suggest that you create reminders based on conversations in Messages, among others. The updates show that Siri has become more than just a voice-activated assistant, but a layer of AI that lives in Apple's software and serves as the thread between its many products, from the iPhone to the Mac and Apple Watch.
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