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Microsoft Adds 'No Code' Startup Lobe to AI Lineup
San Francisco, Calif.-based Lobe, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup that offers a "no code" approach for developing AI projects, is now part of Microsoft.
Microsoft announced its acquisition of the company on Thursday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Lobe offers a drag-and-drop approach for image recognition for deep learning models. Examples can be found here.
"As part of Microsoft, Lobe will be able to leverage world-class AI research, global infrastructure, and decades of experience building developer tools," Lobe said on its Web site. "We plan to continue developing Lobe as a standalone service, supporting open source standards and multiple platforms."
"Lobe's simple visual interface empowers anyone to develop and apply deep learning and AI models quickly, without writing code. We look forward to continuing the great work by Lobe in putting AI development into the hands of non-engineers and non-experts," wrote Kevin Scott, Microsoft executive vice president and CTO, in Microsoft's announcement of the acquisition.
Scott pointed out that Lobe is only the most recent of Microsoft's AI-focused acquisitions in the last few months; the company acquired Semantic Machines and Bonsai in July. "These are just two recent examples of investments we have made to help us accelerate the current state of AI development," he commented.
Microsoft also has also announced several of it's own AI initiatives this year. A roundup of its current technologies can be found here.
About the Author
Becky Nagel is the vice president of Web & Digital Strategy for 1105's Converge360 Group, where she oversees the front-end Web team and deals with all aspects of digital projects at the company, including launching and running the group's popular virtual summit and Coffee talk series . She an experienced tech journalist (20 years), and before her current position, was the editorial director of the group's sites. A few years ago she gave a talk at a leading technical publishers conference about how changes in Web browser technology would impact online advertising for publishers. Follow her on twitter @beckynagel.