Facebook Buys Voice Recognition Startup
Facebook is beefing up its voice recognition team.
Re/code is reporting that the company has acquired Wit.ai, an open platform for natural language processing. TheWit.ai team says the platform will remain open and available in the wake of the acquisition, although it’s unclear how the platform will develop in the long term.
Facebook has long held an interest in artificial intelligence software, including language processing, in part because such programs offer an easy way to leverage the massive amount of data flowing through the platform. “Facebook’s mission is to connect everyone and build amazing experiences for the over 1.3 billion people on the platform,” Wit.ai said in a blog post. “Technology that understands natural language is a big part of that, and we think we can help.”
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Facebook Inc. said it had acquired a voice-recognition startup that claims to “turn speech into actionable data,” a move that could give the social network more information for targeted advertisements.