Microsoft has signed an agreement to acquire Genee, an artificial-intelligence-powered scheduling service, co-founded by Ben Cheung and Charles Lee in 2014. The company is planning to integrate the intelligence technology into its Office 365.
Genee uses natural language processing and optimized decision-making algorithms so that interacting with a virtual assistant is just like interacting with a human one.
"With today’s news, I’m excited to welcome the Genee team to Microsoft. As we continue to build new Office 365 productivity capabilities and services our customers value, I’m confident the Genee team will help us further our ambition to bring intelligence into every digital experience," said Rajesh Jha, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President, Outlook and Office 365.
Ben Cheung and Charles Lee Genee Co-Founders, wrote in a blog, "It's been two and a half years since we let Genee out of the bottle. In our drive to deliver large productivity gains through intelligent scheduling coordination and optimization, we often found ourselves on the forefront of technology involving natural language processing, artificial intelligence (AI), and chat bots."
The Genee service will shut down on September 1, 2016, but all existing calendar entries created by Genee will remain, said the company.
