There is a peculiar way as to how Apple Inc. carries out most of its acquisitions. The acquisition is carried out in a low profile manner and sometimes almost secretively. Continuing with this traditional practice, Apple has now reportedly quietly bought a small AI based startup called Silk Labs.
Since the entire process has been carried out quite secretly, speculations are still rife whether this is actually an ‘acquisition’ or ‘acqui-hire.’ Reports about this being an acqui-hire has been triggered off by strong rumors that some Silk Labs’ employees have already started working on Apple projects. We promise to keep our readers updated over this issue in the coming days.
Silk Labs is a San Francisco based startup that leverages the power of AI to create cutting edge personal assistant technology both for home hubs as well as mobile devices.
Experts claim that Silk Labs’ personal assistants standout for two unique reasons. Firstly, its personal assistants can modify their behavior after getting to know its users over the time. It can do this with the help of both sound as well as vision. Secondly, Silk Lab has created personal assistants that respect its user’s privacy in a much better way than most other personal assistants do.
Apple would like to use Silk Labs’ mastery for its HomePod, which is still lagging behind Amazon Echo and Google Max in market share. Besides, Apple may also seek Silk Labs’ assistance in improving the precision and output of its much celebrated personal assistant Siri.
I would also like to bring to notice that Apple has been on a AI-centric hiring spree off late. This explains Apple’s recent decision to lure Google’s former AI chief and to hire several software engineer’s for its Siri project.
It goes without saying that Apple is carrying out these hiring and acquisition spree to stay ahead of the curve. After all, in the ruthless game of technology, only those players who stay ahead of the curve actually turn out to be winners. And probably no one knows this better than Apple.