Amaya Toman Apple has confirmed that it has acquired Laserlike. A Silicon Valley-based startup from ex-Google engineers used machine learning to discover content. The Cupertino company usually does not comment on acquisitions of smaller companies, including startups, and does not disclose their purpose. The steps that Apple has recently taken in this direction, however, suggest that it is acting in this way in order to improve its virtual voice assistant Siri.
Laserlike has been in business for four years. Its main focus was a tool that should be able to find and deliver content such as news, video or general web content based on the user's preferences. A key assumption was that the tool was able to find content that users usually couldn't find in their standard sources. The corresponding application for this tool has not been available for some time.
Although Apple did not specify the purpose of the acquisition in any detail, it can be assumed that the purchased startup will serve the company to improve machine learning. This could be a step taken to improve Siri. It has been facing criticism for a long time, and competition from Amazon or Google has overtaken it in many ways. One of the things that can hinder Siri's development may be Apple's efforts to protect the privacy of its users.
However, Laserlike's technology could also be used for services such as Apple News. In addition, they will soon be enriched with a magazine subscription service, the presentation of the new function is expected at the upcoming Keynote in March.
The original Laserlike team has reportedly joined Apple's AI division, which is headed by John Giannandrea, who joined the company last year from Google. Giannandre's team oversees the AI and machine learning strategy for all Apple products, as well as the development of Siri and Core ML.
Source: The Information
