Nuance Communications has acquired long-time Voice Biometrics specialist Agnitio, making the Spanish company’s personnel, intellectual property and global customer base part of the Security Group of the Nuance Enterprise Division. The move marks another milestone in the metamorphosis of voice  from a discrete biometric factor for caller verification into a flexible component in a family of technologies that support fraud prevention and simple, secure, conversational commerce.

For Agnitio, it represents the second shoe to drop after it sold its line of embedded voice authentication technologies to Cirrus Logic in September 2015. At that time the company focused on refining its server-based solutions with special attention to government segments that grow out of forensic applications as well as fraud prevention. Its core technologies will complement Nuance Enterprise’s offerings that integrate voice-based authentication with its branded virtual assistant, Nina, on IVRs, Web sites and mobile applications.

Nuance expects to see immediate benefits from ‘acquihiring’ Agnitio’s R&D and product development personnel, as well as sales resources that have strengths in Spanish-speaking countries. Broadening the combined presence in government markets and citizens’ services will also be a benefit.

During its tenure as an independent company, Agnitio focused primarily on establishing OEM relationships and indirect sales. It has been integrated into fraud detection and prevention products from the likes of Verint and Pindrop Security. It is in these domains that Nuance will find immediate expansion of its technology footprint.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Authentication, Articles

Tags: Voice biometrics, Nuance Communications, mergers & acquisition