Adobe acquires Sayspring

Adobe has acquired Sayspring, a startup that helps developer’s prototype and build the voice interfaces for their Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant Apps. All of Sayspring’s services are now available for free — but there is a catch. If you want to sign up for the service now, you’ll need an invite.

Founded in 2017, New-York based Sayspring has technology that makes it easy to design voice applications without coding. The popularity of voice assistants and smart speakers continues to grow. Already, about half of U.S. adults use voice assistants and voice will be a part of every digital interaction within a few years.

Adobe has been working to place voice commands in many of its cloud applications — like Photoshop and the Adobe Marketing Cloud — since the launch of its primary AI service, Sensei, more than a year ago. More than 100 features or services have been rolled out for Sensei since it was introduced in fall 2016, including the ability to track the performance of voice apps and services with Adobe Analytics.

Voicegram, which let Sayspring user’s record and share their conversations with Alexa, has been shut down. The Audio Converter, which used to be a standalone service, will be made part of the Sayspring platform.