Zoom investing in real-time translation following acquisition of AI company

Zoom on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Kites (or Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions), a company focused on artificial intelligence software to transcribe and translate conversations. Following the acquisition, Zoom wants to bring real-time translation to its platform.

Kites was founded in 2015 by 12 scientists who will now join Zoom’s engineering team to bring multi-language translation capabilities to users. The company acquired by the videoconferencing platform was developing technologies that will make it easier for people speaking different languages to talk without barriers.

“We are continuously looking for new ways to deliver happiness to our users and improve meeting productivity, and MT solutions will be key in enhancing our platform for Zoom customers across the globe,” said Velchamy Sankarlingam, President of Product and Engineering at Zoom. “With our aligned missions to make collaboration frictionless – regardless of language, geographic location, or other barriers – we are confident Kites’ impressive team will fit right in with Zoom.”

As noted by The Verge, Zoom already provides an option to transcribe conversations in real time, but this only works in English. Now with the Kites acquisition, we can expect that transcriptions will be available in more languages soon, with real-time translation as well.

Of course, it should still take some time before these features are officially implemented on Zoom’s platform.

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