Microsoft to acquire XOXCO

Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Xoxco, an Austin-based software developer with a focus on bot design, making it the fourth AI-related company Microsoft has purchased this year.

Xoxco, which was founded in 2009 — long before most of us were thinking about conversational bots — has raised $1.5 million. It began working on bots in 2013, and is credited with developing the first bot for Slack to help schedule meetings. The companies did not reveal the price, but it fits nicely with Microsoft’s overall acquisition strategy this year, and an announcement today involving a new bot building tool to help companies build conversational bots more easily.

When you call into a call center these days, or even interact on chat, chances are your initial interaction is with a conversational bot, rather than a human. Microsoft is trying to make it easier for developers without AI experience to tap into Microsoft’s expertise on the Azure platform (or by downloading the bot framework from its newly acquired GitHub).

Microsoft also released guidelines for companies that are building chatbots, encouraging them to make sure they are “responsible and trustworthy,” a nod to past problems involving the technology reacting in unexpected ways. Microsoft, for instance, received criticism for its Tay chat bot that fielded offensive comments from online trolls and then repeated them.