apple The company has acquired Israeli artificial intelligence startup Q.ai, a company representative confirmed Thursday. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Q.ai is secretive and doesn’t share products publicly, but its website indicates it is developing audio-related products. The startup is led by CEO Aviad Maizels, who sold PrimeSense to Apple 2013.

Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, said: “We are pleased to acquire this company with Aviad at the helm and are even more excited about the future growth.” told Reutersfirst reported the news. Srouji leads Apple’s chip development.

The company received investments including GV (Google According to PitchBook, Q.ai is developing a “communication enhancement technology.”

Apple’s AirPods have been upgraded with AI in recent years, including Real-time translation function Intelligent noise reduction can tell when users are having a conversation.

Some investors have called Apple will make big acquisitions in artificial intelligence as its big peers pour money into cutting-edge models and the infrastructure to run them. Meanwhile, Apple’s products, e.g. A more personalized Siri Can use the application and have faced delay.

apple More common is buying smaller companies Have specific technologies that can be integrated into their products. Apple too Announce Earlier this month it struck a deal with Google to allow its Gemini models to support some Apple Intelligence features.

“We are very open to acquisitions that accelerate our roadmap,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said. July says.

Maizels’ previous startup, PrimeSense, developed technology that allowed sensors to detect the distance between objects and began integrating it into Apple’s Face ID sensor in 2017.

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