Apple was the top U.S. company to acquire the most AI companies between 2016 and 2020

GlobalData reports that between 2016 and 2020, Apple Inc. acquired the most AI companies. The artificial intelligence (AI) tech space was dominated by four U.S tech giants, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, with the Cupertino tech giant in the lead. An Ireland-based, Accenture took the fifth position as the only non-U.S company.

Apple voice assistant, Siri which is integrated across devices. However, it has been lagging behind Google Assistant by Google and Alexa by Amazon. Therefore, now AI acquisitions will help to improve Siri’s performance.

Apple acquired the most AI companies

GlobalData analyst said that the Cupertino tech company, alone, made 25 acquisitions, and together the four U.S tech giants took over 60 AI tech companies. The report claims that Cupertino tech giant’s reasons for acquiring the tech brands are to improve Siri, especially for its smart speaker, and wearables.

“Apple has gone on a shopping spree in efforts to catch up with Google (Google Assistant) and Amazon (Alexa). Siri was first on the market, but it consistently ranks below the two in terms of “smartness”, which is partly why Apple is far behind in smart speaker sales.

Apple also want to make sure to keep its strong position within wearables. It is the dominant player in smartwatches. The acquisition of Xnor.ai last year was made to improve its on-edge processing capabilities, which has become important as it eliminates the need for data to be sent to the cloud, thereby improving data privacy.”

Earlier, it was reported that the Cupertino tech giant is working to improve Siri’s recognition of atypical speech. Currently, all voice assistants can not comprehend stutter or speech impairments. However, Apple has yet again taking the lead in atypical speech recognition. Recently, in partnership with Warner Music UK and Rothco, Apple Music launched new ‘Saylists’ for listeners with speech and sound impairments in the U.K.