Software giant Microsoft has bought a smart scheduling app Genee, as part of its effort to embed artificial intelligence (AI) to compete with the likes of Google Now and Apple.
The start-up, which was founded in 2014, will shut down its service on September 1. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by Genee founders Ben Cheung and Charles Lee, who will join Microsoft.
Genee specializes in using machine smarts to handle the time-sucking task of scheduling meetings. It is likely that Microsoft will be using this acquisition to bolster its Office 365 suite.
“As we continue to build new Office 365 productivity capabilities and services our customers value, I’m confident the Genee team will help us further our ambition to bring intelligence into every digital experience,” Rajesh Jha, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Outlook and Office 365, said in a blog post announcing the deal.
Scheduling meetings can often involve a lot of back and forth over emails, something Genee solved with its solution.
A user sends an email to the person they wanted to set up a meeting with and copy in Genee, like a personal assistant. Genee claims to understand the details of the meeting, including the date and location of the meeting.
The app then emails the recipient directly with options that fit the user’s calendar and preferences. Genee said it uses natural language processing for this purpose.
Major tech firms are focusing on bolstering the capabilities of their digital personal assistants. Genee’s expertise could be used to improve capabilities of Microsoft’s Cortana as it competes with the likes of Google Now and Apple’s Siri.