Microsoft Acquires AI-scheduling Service Genee to Integrate with Office 365

A newer service that develops alerting and notifications based on Artificial Intelligence has been acquired by Microsoft with the intent to merge the functionality directly into Office 365. Genee uses natural language processing and optimized decision-making algorithms so that interacting with a virtual assistant is just like interacting with a human one.

Genee outed the acquisition today through a press release and noted that the current service would be shut down on September 1^st, making it one of Microsoft’s quickest turnarounds from acquisition to integration.

The press release:

Genee to Join Microsoft

It's been two and a half years since we let Genee out of the bottle. In our drive to deliver large productivity gains through intelligent scheduling coordination and optimization, we often found ourselves on the forefront of technology involving natural language processing, artificial intelligence (AI), and chat bots. We were extremely fortunate to find many who believed in the vision and supported us with their resources, talent, time, and advice along the way, which made Genee possible. Today, we are pleased to announce that Genee has signed an agreement to be acquired by Microsoft.

A new beginning means the end of another. The Genee service will shut down on September 1, 2016. While Genee will no longer send you useful reminders and agendas from your calendar, all existing calendar entries created by Genee will remain. We thank all of you who participated in Genee's private and public betas. The Genee team will take the valuable experiences and lessons that you taught us to Microsoft, where we’ll continue to build amazing next generation intelligent experiences.  

We consider Microsoft to be the leader in personal and enterprise productivity, AI, and virtual assistant technologies, so we look forward to bringing our passion and expertise to a team that is committed to delivering cutting-edge language and intelligence services.

Please read more about the acquisition from Rajesh Jha, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President, Outlook and Office 365 here.

Ben Cheung and Charles Lee

Genee Co-Founders