To add details

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Apple announced on Thursday that it has acquired QAI, an Israeli artificial intelligence technology startup specializing in voice.

Apple did not disclose details of the deal, which was backed by investment funds Matter Venture Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Spark Capital, Exor, and GV (formerly known as Google Ventures). The Financial Times reported the company was valued at approximately $2 billion, a figure confirmed by Reuters.

She did not specify the purpose of using QAI technology, but said the startup has been working on new machine learning applications to help devices understand speech when the sound is faint and to improve sound in challenging environments.

Last year, QAI filed a patent application for using "micro facial movements" to detect spoken or whispered words, identify a person, and assess their emotions, heart rate, breathing, and other indicators.

QAI’s founding team will join Apple, including the CEO who previously founded PrimeSense, a 3D sensing company, and sold it to Apple in 2013. The PrimeSense deal later helped Apple move away from fingerprint sensors in iPhones and toward facial recognition technology.

Apple is working on adding new artificial intelligence features to AirPods and last year introduced technology that allows it to translate speech between languages.