Microsoft just bought an AI startup to try to make the technology easier to use in the real world

Bonsai aims to make artificial intelligence technology easier to use in the real world. Microsoft has agreed to acquire Bonsai, a startup focusing on the hot field of artificial intelligence. Bonsai will become part of Microsoft's commercial AI offering through its own Project Brainwave foundation and its Azure cloud computing service, said Gurdeep Pall, Microsoft's corporate vice president of business AI, in a blog post Wednesday. "Bonsai has achieved some remarkable breakthroughs with their approach that will have a profound impact on AI development," he said. AI -- especially areas called machine learning and neural networks -- is an immensely important development in computing.