Apple Confirms Acquisition of Machine Learning App Laserlike

• Apple recently confirmed the acquisition of the four-year-old startup which was founded by ex-Google engineers.
• Laserlike is set to help Apple improve its machine learning initiatives and voice assistant Siri.
• The Laserlike team could allow Siri to be more personalized and offer more relevant responses.

Apple submitted a standard acquisition statement to confirm its purchase of machine learning app Laserlike. The tech giant revealed that it acquires companies from time to time, but it does not discuss the purpose or plans which is why we had no official confirmation despite the acquisition taking place last year. Laserlike was built to serve as a search app that deployed discovery and machine learning techniques to offer news, video and web content. The search results by Laserlike are displayed on a per-user basis, unlike other search engines.

According to The Information, Apple’s acquisition falls in line with its recent artificial intelligence efforts. The Laserlike team has joined the Apple AI group along with ex-Google executive John Giannandrea. According to Laserlike’s website, we live in a world with too much information and its search engine seeks to help users sift through data and find things users care about.

Laserlike seeks to address the issue of ‘information abundance’ by delivering high-quality information on any topic on the internet. The team is passionate about helping people follow their interests. The company confirmed that it had been tasked with improving Apple’s machine learning initiatives and voice-assistant Siri. Laserlike could potentially allow Siri to offer more personalized responses.

Apple has been struggling against its archrival Amazon Alexa, which is the most capable voice assistant right now as well as Google’s own ‘Assistant’ which has become widely popular over the years. The Siri team has been plagued with political and leadership issues over the years which have served as setbacks to the development of the voice assistant. With Apple executive, Mr. Giannandrea serving as the new AI chief at Apple, and the addition of the Laserlike team could see things change soon. The tech giant is expected to bring more AI features to its upcoming hardware after showing off a number of AR features for the current generation iPhones last year.

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