Microsoft acquires Nuance, an AI speech tech company for 19.7 billion dollars. This is the second biggest acquisition after buying LinkedIn.
Microsoft believes that this acquisition will combine and enhance the expertise and solutions to deliver cloud and AI capabilities across many industries, including healthcare too.
This acquisition will be for $56 per share, inferring to a 23% premium to a closing price on Friday, in an all cash transactions, inclusive of Nuance net debt.
“Dragon” a software by Nuance for transcription is one of the best known in the market right now, and thought the help of Deep learning in Artificial Intelligence, this technology is improving rapidly day by day. And even Siri, assistant by Apple also relies on Dragon to an extent for its working.
Digital transcription has now become much more important in this time where remote working is given more importance. Zoom Meeting, University lectures, are also using transcription for a better overall understanding.
For Microsoft, their 2/3 of revenue is from enterprise sales and cloud computing, this could be a great addition to the company’s workflow and business too.
“Nuance provides the AI layer at the healthcare point of delivery and is a pioneer in the real-world application of enterprise AI,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “AI is technology’s most important priority, and healthcare is its most urgent application. 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.”
This could bring a whole lot of opportunities and improvements in the field of AI speech tech technology.
