Microsoft acquires AI speech tech firm Nuance for $19.7 billion

Microsoft is acquiring Artificial intelligence (AI) speech tech business Nuance for $19.7 billion, bolstering the Redmond, Washington-based tech company’s prowess in voice identification and delivering it additional support in the health care business, where Nuance trades various products.

Microsoft will fund $56 per share for Nuance, a 23 per cent premium over the company’s closing price last Friday. The agreement combines Nuance’s net debt.

Nuance is famous for its Dragon software, which applies deep learning to transcribe speech and increases its efficiency over experience by adjusting to a user’s voice.

Nuance has allowed this tech for multiple services and applications, including several famously Apple’s digital assistant Siri.

Though to what degree Siri currently depend on Dragon to satisfy users’ questions is unclear. Dragon is an industry leader in times of transcription accuracy.

The $19.7 billion purchase of Nuance is Microsoft’s second-largest behind its acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016 for $26 billion.

It happens when communication tech is growing rapidly, thanks to the deep learning boom in AI, and there are together more possibilities for its use.

Digital transcription has grown more stable in various settings, from medical conferences to board meetings and university speeches.

The uptick in remote operation has also generated new possibilities. With so several meetings leading place via video, it is simpler to offer consumers transcriptions via software mixed directly into these calls.

Zoom, for example, allows automated transcription via combination with third-party services like Otter.

For Microsoft, which forms approximately two-thirds of its revenue from business software sales and cloud computing, increasing its transcription services for situations like these offers a complete sense.

The company could combine Nuance’s technology into its current software, like Teams, or attempt it independently as a portion of its Azure cloud business.

The next focus will be on health care, where the two organizations have previously served together. In 2019, they published a “strategic partnership” to use Nuance’s software to digitize health experiences for Microsoft’s clients.

Nuance’s health tech, including its Dragon Medical One stand, which is tuned to recognize medical terminology, is reportedly used by higher than half a million physicians worldwide and in 77 per cent of US hospitals.

“By increasing the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare with Nuance’s solutions, as great as the benefit of Nuance’s expertise and connections with EHR systems providers, Microsoft will be fully prepared to allow healthcare providers into the power of ambient clinical intelligence and additional Microsoft cloud services,” stated Microsoft in a blog post.

“Nuance presents the AI layer at the healthcare point of performance and is a guide in the real-world application of enterprise AI,” stated Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a statement.

“AI is technology’s most significant advantage, and healthcare is its most important application. Together, with our associate ecosystem, we will put forward AI solutions into the support of professionals throughout to drive more reliable decision-making and create more significant connections, as we accelerate the growth of Microsoft Cloud in Healthcare and Nuance.”