Samsung acquires Greek text-to-speech startup Innoetics

With Bixby still awaiting a public release nearly four months after Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus initial launch, the AI-powered voice assistant that had wowed almost everyone at the launch is becoming a liability for the company. But looks like, South Korean giant may have finally found a fix for its problem.

Samsung has acquired Innoetics, a Greek startup that has developed text-to-speech and voice-to-speech technology that can, among other things, listen to a person speaking, train on what that person is saying, and then read out a piece of completely unrelated text in that same voice. The news was first reported by TechCrunch that pegs the deal under $50 million.

“Samsung has agreed to acquire Innoetics. Samsung is always exploring ways to deepen our relationships with companies like Innoetics whose technologies present an opportunity to strengthen Samsung’s capabilities,” the South Korean company said in a statement to TechCrunch.

Innoetics was established in 2006 as a spin-off company of the Institute of Language & Speech Processing at the Athena Research Center. Given that Innoetics’ technology aims at making AI speech more human-like, it could prove immensely helpful in improving Bixby capabilities and also boost Samsung’s foray into smart speaker market.

Samsung’s other acquisition in the area of voice-based technology includes personal assistant startup Viv, which it used to help build Bixby.