Apple Acquired Machine Learning Startup Inductiv for Siri Improvements

Apple recently purchased Ontario-based machine learning startup Inductiv for the purpose of improving Siri, reports Bloomberg.

Apple confirmed the purchase with one of its typical acquisition statements: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Inductiv's engineering team joined Apple after the acquisition to work on ‌Siri‌, machine learning, and data science at the company. Prior to the purchase, Inductiv created technology that used AI to automate identifying and correcting errors in data for machine learning purposes. From Bloomberg:

Having clean data is important for machine learning, a popular and powerful type of AI that helps software improve with less human invention.

The work falls under the category of data science, a key element of Apple's broader machine-learning strategy.

Apple's Siri chief John Giannandrea, who is also responsible for machine learning, has been upgrading the underlying technology that ‌Siri‌ is based on with acquisitions of companies like Inductiv.

Apple has purchased multiple AI and machine learning-related companies over the course of the last several years, such as Voysis, Xnor.ai, Turi, Perceptio, Tuplejump, and more.