The software giant Microsoft never rests. The M&A process by Bill Gates' multinational company is the order of the day, with the aim of achieving continuous technological progress. In our field of corporate finance we are going to show you the latest purchase of companies in the technology sector which, as we will explain later, will be focused on Artificial Intelligence.
Microsoft buys startup Xoxco
Microsoft has announced the acquisition of the US company Xoxco, which specialises in "chatbots" or conversational robots. With this acquisition, the company is reinforcing its commitment to this technology, which is increasingly present in the customer services.
Microsoft had been collaborating with Xoxco for years, contributing to the development of conversational AI since 2013, but it wasn't until mid-November 2018 that it made the acquisition.
"We have signed an agreement to acquire Xoxco, a software product design and development studio known for its AI and conversational bot development capabilities," wrote Lili Cheng, corporate vice president of conversational AI at Microsoft. "The use of the natural language will be the new interface allowing people to do more with what they say, write and so on," he added in a blog post announcing the purchase of the company.
Proven experience in chatbots
Xoxco was founded in 2008 in Austin, Texas, and has since raised $1.5 million in investment.
He began working on bots in 2013 and it was then that they developed the first robot assistant for the organisation and management of meetings of the popular digital business tool Slack, called Howdy bot. He also created BotKit, a suite of development tools used by many developers on GitHub, which was also acquired by Microsoft.
Conversational bots take customer calls, answer virtual chats or guide the user through the first steps of their request or complaint. The call or chat is then handed over to a human agent.
However, the goal of the developers of this technology is that in the future, AI will enable chatbots to carry out more complex tasks and that companies can rely on them for the full range of their services. customer service.
Artificial Intelligence as a goal
Microsoft knows that Artificial Intelligence is key to transforming the world as we know it. Proof of this has been the latest mergers and acquisitions of startups during this 2018 focused on artificial intelligence. With the purchase of Xoxco, Microsoft has already confirmed a total of 4 mergers and acquisitions. The other three were as follows:
- Semantic Machines was the first purchase made in May. Microsoft acquired it in order to accelerate its efforts in artificial intelligence and to be able to provide users with a more realistic conversation with bots.
- In June, Bonsai, a Californian startup that is helping to simplify the development of artificial intelligence.
- The last previous purchase from Xoxco was made around Lobe in September. This startup gives them yet another tool to make it easier for the multinational's developers to incorporate AI into their applications.