Dive Brief:
- Apple reportedly scooped up machine learning firm Tuplejump, but the terms of the acquisition remain unknown, according to reporting done by TechCrunch.
- Tuplejump becomes the third machine learning company Apple has added to its roster since late last year. It bought Perceptio at the end of 2015, and Turi just a few months ago.
- According to the TechCrunch report, the Tuplejump deal might be tied to FiloDB, an open source project created by Tuplejump that applies machine learning and analytics to large amounts of data in real-time.
Dive Insight:
The recent moves by Apple are another indicator of large tech companies' growing interest in machine learning and artificial intelligence, a trend that's represented by the rise in programs like IBM’s Watson, Google’s ongoing R&D spend in the space and Facebook’s investment in AI facial recognition tech.
One use Apple could have for machine learning would be improving its Siri digital assistant, a matter that's become more urgent following Google's launch of its latest messaging app, Allo, Wednesday. The Allo digital assistant draws on huge swaths of behavioral data from the Google suite of programs like Maps, search and Chrome to better accommodate and improve user experience in real-time ways that might give it an advantage over Siri.
Regardless of competition, further investments in firms like Tuplejump read as the right move: A recent Forrester Research report on emerging technology for the next five years puts a premium on AI, intelligent agents and high-level analytics that would all take advantage of machine learning capabilities. For marketers, machine learning helps make useful sense out of the massive data streams marketing activities provide, including powerful tactics like predicative analytics.