Microsoft is in advanced talks to acquire Nuance Communications, an artificial intelligence company voice recognition technology helped develop Apple Air Virtual Assistant, for up to $ 16 billion, a source familiar with the matter said Reuters.
The price of the deal being negotiated could value Nuance at around $ 56 per share, the source said, approximately 23% premium compared to the closing price of the stock on Friday. They added that an official announcement could arrive as soon as Monday.
A source who spoke to Bloomberg, who reported for the first time News of a possible deal on Sunday said negotiations are still ongoing and warned they could still be undone.
While not exactly a well-known name, Nuance’s voice recognition and artificial intelligence software is used in a wide range of industries, from healthcare to automotive, and helped establish the bases for technology that powers Apple’s voice assistant.
Neither Microsoft nor Nuance have publicly confirmed these conversations, so it’s best to take all of this with a grain of salt for now. Still, the two companies have a bit of history working together. In 2019, Microsoft announced a collaboration with Nuance to create technology that allows physicians to record conversations with their patients during visits and automatically relay this information to electronic medical records.
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“Microsoft’s collaboration will accelerate our ability to address the most pressing health challenges, together,” then-Nuance CEO Mark Benjamin said. “The environmental technologies we will offer together can improve productivity and job satisfaction, while allowing physicians to focus on what they do best: caring for patients.”
There are rumors that Microsoft is spending a bit right now. He is reportedly also looking at the gaming-focused chat platform Discord for more than $ 10 billion a few months after he got the video game holding company ZeniMax Media. If this Nuance deal is maintained, it would be one of Microsoft’s largest acquisitions to date, only after the purchase of LinkedIn in 2016 for $ 26.2 billion.