Salesforce acquires AI startup MetaMind
Salesforce has acquired artificial intelligence startup MetaMind. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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Based in Palo Alto, MetaMind -- which was backed by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff -- touts its technology as being enterprise-grade AI. Its work has revolved mainly around deep learning in language and vision-based applications.
Salesforce plans to integrate MetaMind's technology into various Salesforce services.
"With MetaMind and Salesforce coming together, we'll be able to offer customers real AI solutions with breakthrough capabilities that further automate and personalize customer support, marketing automation, and many other business processes," MetaMind cofounder and chief executive Richard Socher wrote in a blog post. "We'll extend Salesforce's data science capabilities by embedding deep learning within the Salesforce platform."
Socher said MetaMind's products will be discontinued on May 4 for unpaid web users, and on June 4 for recurring users.
As for Salesforce, the CRM giant has been bulking up its portfolio with various AI and deep learning-based startups.
In December, Salesforce bought MinHash, a startup which leverages AI to help marketers put together successful ad campaigns. MinHash was founded by technologists and data scientists gleaned from previous roles with eBay, Oracle and Stanford.
In February, Salesforce snapped up PredictionIO, an open-source startup behind a machine learning server of the same name. Salesforce plans to use the technology to bolster SalesforceIQ's machine learning.