Apple is getting into the artificial intelligence business. The popular tech company recently acquired Emotient, a California start-up that utilizes artificial intelligence technology, according to Tech Crunch.
The company uses its AI to read facial expressions and detect emotions, according to the Verge.
"Emotient is the leader in emotion detection and sentiment analysis based on facial expressions. The company is at the vanguard of a new wave of emotion analysis that will lead to a quantum leap in customer understanding and emotion-aware computing. Emotient's cloud-based services deliver direct measurement of a customer's unfiltered emotional response to ads, content, products and customer service or sales interactions. Emotient delivers this value quickly, affordably and at scale," said the company on its website.
Apple is the most recent company to utilize facial recognition technology. Facebook uses it with its Moments photo app and Google Photos also offers facial recognition features on its app.
There is no word yet, however, on what exactly this new acquisition means for Apple.
"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans," said the company in a statement.
Emotient was created in 2012 and quickly raised $8 million in investments.
The technology has been previously sold to advertising agencies, according to Market Watch. It's used to test for consumer reactions. It's also been used by doctors to test for signs of pain in patients who otherwise can't communicate.
