There’s a report over at TechCrunch that Apple has let some of the pocket change from their $250B bank balance slip out. They’ve picked up Lattice Data, an AI-focused business that takes all that messy unstructured data out there and converts it into useful information.
Of curse, the $200M asking price is a mere pittance to Apple but it’s still a significant investment. With Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others all ploughing dollars and effort into creating digital assistants and concierge services and devices, Apple has been left in the dust. Siri might have been cool when she first told us how to hide a body or divide zero by zero, but she’s looking decidedly behind the times.
Apple’s typical model when acquiring another business is to shutter it and move the people into their fold. They did the same recently with Beddit – a sleep monitoring app signalling that they plan to add some new features to the Apple Watch.
It’s unlikely Apple will rush Lattice Data’s research into anything we’ll see announced at WWDC in a few weeks.
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