Apple Buying Seattle-Based Artificial Intelligence Company

The tech world is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, and Apple is no exception. In fact, the tech giant is buying Seattle machine-learning startup, Turi. Apple confirmed that it was purchasing the company formerly known as both GraphLab and Dato. In addition, it was a GraphLab open-source project that Pandora used to set up recommendations. Apple spoke of the purchase saying, “Apple buys smaller companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purposes or plans.”

Although, the team–led by Carlos Guestrin, the Amazon professor of machine learning at the University of Washington, is expected to stay in Seattle. Geekwire broke the news, which stated that Apple intends to pay around $200 million for Turi. During Apple’s most recent earning’s call, CEO Tim Cook said “We have focused our AI efforts on the features that best enhance the customer experience. For example, machine learning enables Siri to understand words as well as the intent behind them. That means Siri does a better job understanding and even predicting what you want, then delivering the right responses to requests.”

Cook went on to add, “Machine learning is improving facial and image recognition in photos, predicting word choice while typing in messages and mail, and providing context awareness in maps for better directions. Deep learning within our products even enables them to recognize usage patterns and improve their own battery life.”

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