Microsoft Buys Nuance For $19.7 Billion, Bet on Health Care (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. is buying speech technology company Nuance Communications Inc. in an all-cash deal valued at $19.7 billion, making a massive bet on health care artificial intelligence.
The software giant is offering to purchase Nuance at $56 a share, a 23% premium to Friday’s close, according to a statement Monday, which confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report. The deal marks Microsoft’s largest acquisition since LinkedIn Corp.
Microsoft is tapping the company tied to the Siri voice technology to develop solutions that free doctors from note-taking and better predict a patient’s needs. It has been working with Nuance for two years on AI software that helps clinicians capture patient discussions and integrate them into electronic health records, and combining the speech technology company’s products into its Teams chat app for telehealth appointments.
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