Microsoft buys AI speech technology company Nuance for $ 19,7 billion, boosting Redmond's voice recognition and boosting its healthcare market, where Nuance has a wide range of products.
Microsoft will pay $ 56 per share for Nuance, a 23% premium on the closing price of the company last Friday. The deal also includes Nuance's net debt.
Nuance is best known for its Dragon software, which uses deep learning to transcribe speeches and improves its accuracy over time by adapting the user's voice.
Nuance has licensed this technology to many services and applications, as in Apple's Siri digital assistant.
Nuance's $ 19,7 billion acquisition is Microsoft's second largest after buying LinkedIn in 2016 for $ 26 billion. It comes at a time when speech technology is improving very fast, thanks to the explosion of deep learning in AI.
Digital transcription has become much more reliable and used, from medical consultations to board meetings and university lectures. The rise of remote work has also created new opportunities. With so many video appointments, it is easier to offer customers transfers through software built directly into these calls. Zoom, for example, offers automatic transfer through integration with third-party services such as Otter.
