Apple acquired Turi Inc. for $200 million in a very exciting purchase. This is the ultimate deal that may change how iPhones, iPads, and their entire product line operates.

Apple has fallen behind other companies including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon, in the AI and machine learning fields.

Apple sees its Turi acquisition as a way to better tap into the growing community of AI researchers, said a person familiar with the deal. Apple has been criticised by researchers for being too secretive about its AI work. In contrast, Turi held a two-day machine-learning conference in July in San Francisco for data scientists and academics.

Formerly known as Dato, Turi raised more than $25 million from venture capital investors including New Enterprise Associates and Madrona Venture Group, according to CrunchBase.

In January, Apple acquired Emotient, a start-up that uses AI to recognise and act upon facial expressions. Last year, it acquired a pair of voice-centric AI start-ups, VocalIQ and Perceptio, to bolster Siri. VocalIQ specialised in using machine learning to allow voice assistants to engage in more realistic conversation. Perceptio focused on helping AI systems run on devices while sharing limited amounts of personal user data