Microsoft Buys Into AI Speech Recognition
Microsoft is on an aggressive growth path and has agreed terms to buy Nuance Communications, an AI speech recognition company, for $19.7 billion, subject to regulators approval and Nuance's shareholders.
The aim is to improve Microsoft’s cloud healthcare business and to expand Microsoft’s potential. "Nuance provides the AI layer at the healthcare point of delivery and is a pioneer in the real-world application of enterprise AI," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Based near Boston, Nuance is prominent in the type of voice recognition technology that is currently being used by more than 55 per cent of physicians and 75 per cent radiologists in the US. "Together, with our partner ecosystem, we will put advanced AI solutions into the hands of professionals everywhere to drive better decision-making and create more meaningful connections, as we accelerate growth of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare and Nuance."
Nuance's conversational AI tools are well-versed in specialised medical terms and can capture and document every word of a physician during their encounter with patients.
More than 77 per cent of the hospitals in the US use Nuance products including the Dragon Ambient eXperience, Dragon Medical One, and PowerScribe One. They all are SaaS offerings built on Microsoft Azure. Nuance's Dragon software, which uses deep learning to transcribe speech, can adapt to a particular user's voice to improve accuracy.
Microsoft is aiming to beat its competitors like Google and Amazon in the race to establish a strong position in AI and the Nuance acquisition will be Microsoft's second largest under Nadella. In 2014, Microsoft acquired the Mojang AB, the owner of the Minecraft videogame, within months of Nadella becoming the chief of the company while two years later, the company spent $26.2 billion (£18.8 billion) to acquire professional network Linkedin Corp.
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