Which company did Apple acquire to create the Siri voice assistant?

Apple acquired Siri Inc. to create the Siri voice assistant. The company grew out of an artificial-intelligence project at SRI International, with technology developed through work involving the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and academic partners.

Before Apple’s acquisition, Siri was released as a standalone iPhone application in February 2010. Apple bought the company in April 2010 and subsequently transformed the technology into a built-in assistant. Siri debuted as an integrated feature of the iPhone 4S in October 2011, after which Apple removed the separate Siri app from the App Store.

A common mix-up is Nuance, whose speech-recognition technology helped power Siri’s early voice processing. Nuance did not create Siri and was not the company Apple acquired. Google and Viv Labs were also unrelated to this acquisition; Viv Labs was founded by members of the original Siri team and was later acquired by Samsung.