Zoom Video Communications announced that it has acquired German machine translation tech startup Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions (KITES). Zoom said that KITES’ team of 12 research scientists will be helping the Zoom’s engineering team build translation capabilities for Zoom users.
KITES is among Zoom’s first acquisitions following the company’s $1.75 billion-plus share sale earlier this year. KITES’ platform was originally designed as a tool to facilitate dialogue among international academic teams, but its focus was later expanded to become a general-purpose, AI-driven translation framework. The company says that its system has a recognition error rate of about 5 percent with about only one second of delay behind a person’s speech.
Velchamy Sankarlingam, president of product and engineering at Zoom, said:
“We are continuously looking for new ways to deliver happiness to our users and improve meeting productivity, and [machine translation] solutions will be key in enhancing our platform for Zoom customers across the globe.”
“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.”
KITES co-founders Alex Waibel and Sebastian Stüker said in a statement: “KITES emerged with the mission of breaking down language barriers and making seamless cross-language interaction a reality of everyday life, and we have long admired Zoom for its ability to easily connect people across the world.”
“We know Zoom is the best partner for KITES to help advance our mission, and we are excited to see what comes next under Zoom’s incredible innovation engine.”
