Microsoft's $20 billion AI deal will shake up how we work

Microsoft said on Monday that had agreed to buy Nuance Communications Inc. for about $56 a share, or almost $20 billion including debt. At first glance, it may seem like a strange candidate for what would become Microsoft's second-largest acquisition after its $26 billion deal for LinkedIn Corp. For much of the last decade, Nuance's sales have stagnated as the early pioneer of speech-recognition products wasn't able to innovate fast enough. Given the impressive technology and potential inside its latest AI solution for health care, a purchase of Nuance makes sense. The game-changing product is the Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience, or DAX, which was released in February 2020.