Apple Purchases AI Device Startup Silk Labs

Apple has acquired Silk Labs, an AI startup that focuses on making AI software 'lightweight enough' for consumer hardware like cameras and speakers, reports The Information.

Apple purchased Silk Labs, a small startup with approximately a dozen employees, earlier this year. Silk's website says that it aims to 'bring next-generation visual and audio intelligence to connected products' with 'state-of-the-art image and audio recognition.'

Silk's site suggests its technology has a number of potential uses for home security, retail analytics, package monitoring, digital display metrics, access control, parking lot monitoring, and building surveillance with capabilities like people detection, facial recognition, audio detection, object recognition.

Silk used to have a blog where its technology was explained, but it is defunct, as is the company's Twitter account, which has not been updated since 2017. The company's website, does, however, provide insight into its technology, though there's no word on how Apple might be planning to use it. Silk, like Apple, is said to be focused on a privacy-forward AI experience.

The company did come out with a product called Sense, which debuted on Kickstarter three years ago. Sense was designed to be a 'digital brain' for smart home products, communicating with them to improve interoperability and to learn a person's smart home needs over time.

The startup was founded by Andreas Gal, Chris Jones, and Michael Vines, with Gal previously serving as Mozilla's Chief Technology Officer.Tag: Apple acquisitionDiscuss this article in our forums