Apple has been very interested in any company that has been working on AI and associated tech. A few months back, the company purchased the rights for one such company and now they have done it again by acquiring an AI technology startup for video searches. It is yet another acquisition by the tech giant in the artificial intelligence category industry. The company they have acquired is Barcelona-based startup Vilynx Inc in a deal completed for around $50 million.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Apple stated that “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans”. The company Vilynx is working on advanced artificial intelligence and computer vision technology which can analyze the content of the video and could determine the video’s audio, text, and visual content, then create searchable tags for the video. The technology could be a perfect add-on to their voice assistant Siri and could also enhance their search algorithm.
The same technology can also be used to improve the experience of the Photos app with better search capabilities. As a part of the deal, Vilynx’s co-founder and chief technology officer Elisenda Bou-Balust will remain at Apple, alongside around 50 other engineers and data scientists. The deal was made earlier in the year and is a part of many such deals that Apple has made this year. It shows that the company is looking out for any kind of new technology and companies that are currently working on it.