Adobe boosts voice capacity by bringing onboard Sayspring
Adobe has acquired voice app platform Sayspring for an undisclosed amount, in a deal that signals that the multimedia and creativity software giant is pushing hard into the audio trend.
Sayspring lets its users design, build, and prototype voice apps, such as those for use with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
“The way we interact with our devices is at a significant inflection point,” Abhay Parasnis, executive vice president and CTO of Adobe, said in the announcement. “We’re moving beyond the keyboard and mouse and even our touch screens to using something that is even more natural – our voice – to interact with technology. Voice tech is growing fast, and we strongly believe it must become an integral part of Adobe’s portfolio moving forward.”
Sayspring was founded in New York in 2017, with the intent of providing creators with tools that work with voice technology without needing any coding skills. The startup has five employees who will join Adobe. Adobe has not yet specified how it plans to roll Sayspring into its operations, except to say that Sayspring’s existing customers will continue to have access to the platform.
Adobe has has been working for some time to incorporate voice commands into its cloud apps, including Photoshop and Adobe Marketing Cloud. This follows on from Adobe’s launch of its AI service Sensei in 2016. Adobe has stated that it is planning to turn Sensei into something of a creative assistant, including adding voice recognition capabilities into the various applications.
70 million US households will have a smart device like Amazon Echo, Google Home, or Sonos One by 2022, according to a report from Juniper Research. This deal shows that Adobe is taking the shift from keys to voice seriously. We expect voice-related technology to continue to be an attractive target for M&A going forward, as the big players prepare to compete in the voice-commanded future.
