Microsoft buys AI and bot developer XOXCO

Microsoft has announced the purchase of conversational AI developer XOXCO, yet another acquisition that aggressively pushes the company further into a highly lucrative market.

Microsoft has yet to reveal exactly how it will integrate XOXCO's technology into its products and services, although it's likely the tech giant will want to take some of the features found in Howdy.ai, XOXCO's Slack bot that helps schedule meetings into its Office 365 productivity suite.

XOXCO also developed GitHub development tool Botkit, which could come in handy considering the firm bought the developer platform earlier this year.

"We have shared goals to foster a community of startups and innovators, share best practices and continue to amplify our focus on conversational AI, as well as to develop tools for empowering people to create experiences that do more with speech and language," said Lili Cheng, corporate vice president of Conversational AI, in a blog post.

This is just one of many AI-focused announcements from Microsoft recently. In May the acquisition of AI firm Semantic Machines was announced, shortly followed by Bonsai in June, and Lobe in September, companies that were working on making AI development more accessible to everyone. Cheng has vowed to continue coming up with new ideas to help businesses and individuals realise the potential of such technologies.

"To do this, Microsoft is infusing intelligence across all its products and services to extend individuals' and organizations' capabilities and make them more productive, providing a powerful platform of AI services and tools that makes innovation by developers and partners faster and more accessible, and helping transform business by enabling breakthroughs to current approaches and entirely new scenarios that leverage the power of intelligent technology," she added.