Apple acquired the Israeli AI start-up Q.ai in a deal reportedly worth $1.6 billion, making it the biggest acquisition in Apple’s history, according to reports by The Financial Times and Reuters on Thursday.
Q.ai was described by The FT as a “secretive Israeli start-up” that developed a technology capable of analyzing the “silent speech” made in facial expressions.
According to the report, people familiar with the matter said the deal would value the Israeli start-up at nearly $2 billion.
With the move, Apple aims to improve its access to AI technology, which has suffered recent setbacks, especially after several delays in deploying Apple Intelligence's full announced capabilities.
“Q.ai is a remarkable company that is pioneering new and creative ways to use imaging and machine learning,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice-president of hardware technologies, to The Financial Times.
“Q.ai has operated in stealth since its inception, hard at work collapsing the gap between human intent and digital execution,” wrote Tom Hulme, one of the heads at GV (formerly Google Ventures and one of the seed investors of Q.ai), in a blog post.
According to Hulme, Q.ai’s CEO, Aviad Maizels, has the unique distinction of having two of his companies sold to Apple: PrimeSense, the tech behind Kinect, which Apple acquired in November 2013.
The current technology developed by Q.ai is used in intelligent headphones and glasses to detect “facial micro movements,” allowing users to control the devices without performing excessive actions.
"Joining Apple opens extraordinary possibilities for pushing boundaries and realizing the full potential of what we’ve created, and we’re thrilled to bring these experiences to people everywhere,” Maizels said in a statement to Reuters.
Apple falls behind in AI race
On January 13, Apple announced a deal with Alphabet (Google's parent company) to integrate its Gemini AI system into Apple Intelligence software.
According to a Reuters report, Apple aims to improve its AI systems across its devices with this deal, while Google continues to expand the reach of its AI motors, which are already used to power most of Samsung’s “Galaxy AI.”
"After careful evaluation, Apple determined Google's AI technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models," Google said, according to the report, adding that its models will also power other future Apple Intelligence features.
Apple, which already had established a similar deal with OpenAI’s ChatGPT system, said that the current agreement would not overturn the previous AI implementations added to its software.