Microsoft buys artificial intelligence start-up Genee

Cortana to compete with the likes of Google Now and Apple's Siri. Software giant Microsoft has bought a smart scheduling app Genee, as part of its effort to embed artificial intelligence (AI) to compete with the likes of Google Now and Apple. The start-up, which was founded in 2014, will shut down its service on September 1. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by Genee founders Ben Cheung and Charles Lee, who will join Microsoft. Genee specialises in using machine smarts to handle the time-sucking task of scheduling meetings.