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Apple's HomePod is a distant third behind Amazon and Google in the market share of smart speakers acting as the main hub, with a market share of less than 5% in the US, according to a recent study. And his flagship personal assistant, Siri, is also determined to lag behind Google in terms of understanding and accuracy. However, there are signs that the company is determined to double the number of artificial intelligence and place it at the center of its next generation of products. It also uses acquisitions to achieve this.
According to Information, Apple has quietly acquired Silk Labs, a San Francisco-based startup that was working on an AI-based personal assistant technology, for both personal hubs and mobile devices.
Silk's platform is distinctly different from other assistants: it has been able to change its behavior as it learns more about its users over time (use of sound and vision); and it was designed to work on the device – a snap to the privacy and concerns about "always on" speakers at your fingertips; improved treatment on the devices; and the constraints of cloud and network technology.
Apple has not returned any requests for comments, but we have found that at least some of Silk Labs' employees already seem to work for Apple (LinkedIn lists nine Silk Labs employees, all from engineering backgrounds). ).
This means that we do not know whether it is a full acquisition or an online acquisition – as we know more, we will update this article – but reliance on the team (and potentially the technology) demonstrates the need and interest of Apple to duplicate the creation of products. they are not just repetitions of what we already have on the market.
Silk Labs was born in February 2016, at the initiative of Mozilla's former CTO Adreas Gal, who also created the company's mobile platform, Firefox OS; and Michael Vines, from Qualcomm. (Vines has also moved in June 2018 to become the lead engineer of a blockchain start-up, Solana.)
Its first product was originally designed as integrated software and hardware: the company collected just under $ 165,000 in a Kickstarter to build and ship Sense, a smart speaker that would control connected home devices and meet questions, as well as with a built-in camera. be able to monitor the pieces and learn to recognize people and their actions.
Four months later, Silk Labs announced that it was going to put Sense hardware at the software center, called Silk, after announcing that it was starting to receive inquiries from builders interested in launching the software. a version of the platform on their own devices (he also raised funds outside Kickstarter, about $ 4 million).
Silk could perhaps give these OEMs a way to differentiate themselves from the multitude of devices already on the market. In addition to products such as Google and Amazon, there are also a number of speakers powered by these wizards, as well as devices using Cortana from Microsoft.
When Silk Labs announced that it was putting an end to hardware development, he said he was discussing some business partnerships (while opening the search for a basic version of the platform Silk for creating communications with IoT devices).
Silk Labs has never revealed the name of these partners, but buying and closing the company would be a way to ensure that the technology stays in one company.
We're about to match what Silk Labs has built so far specifically with Apple's efforts, including its own smart speaker, the HomePod.
Specifically, it could provide a smarter engine that learns more about users, works even if the Internet is down, protects users' privacy, and becomes an essential hub for how you could harness the rest of your life connected.
That would be a mix of features that would clearly separate it from the market leader of the moment and play on aspects – especially privacy – that people start to value more.
But if you consider the spectrum of hardware and services in which Apple is now involved, you can see that the Silk team, and potentially the IP, can also have a wider impact.
Apple has had a mixed track record in AI. The company was a pioneer when it installed its Siri voice assistant in its iPhone 4S in 2011, and for a long time, people have always mentioned it in association with Amazon and Google (less Microsoft) when they lamented the lack of Technology companies have unearthed all the talents of artificial intelligence, which leaves little room for other companies to focus on the manufacture of products or on how they were developed to greater ladder.
More recently, though, it seems that companies like Amazon – with its portfolio of devices powered by Alexa – and Google have stole the show with respect to consumer products built with AI technologies at the base and as the main interface with their users. (Siri, if anything, sometimes feels like a nuisance when you accidentally call in action by tapping the touch bar or the home button on my old iPhone model.)
But it is almost certainly wrong to assume that Apple – one of the largest companies in the world, known to play hand against heart – has gone astray in this area.
There have been some indications, however, that this is getting serious and that we are rethinking the way it does things.
A few months ago, he reorganized his AI teams under former googling John Giannandrea, thereby losing some talent. at the same time, but more significantly, we indicate how his Siri and Core ML teams would work together and through various projects of the company, from development tools to cartography, etc.
Over the last few years, Apple has also made dozens of increasingly small and large-scale acquisitions in an effort to bolster its artificial intelligence in different areas, from augmented reality to computer vision, to the large data processing. the back. He even acquired other startups, such as VocalIQ in England, that focus on voice interfaces and "learn" interactions.
True, the company began to witness a deceleration of unit sales of iPhone (if not revenue: prices are higher than ever), which will involve focusing on new devices and put more and more emphasis on the services provided on these devices. . Services can be expanded and expanded, and they represent a recurring revenue – two of the main reasons why Apple will commit to investing more in these services.
Expect AI Net to cover not only the iPhone, but also computers, the Apple Smartwatch, its own smart speaker, HomePod, Apple Music, Health and all your digital life.
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