Microsoft has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SwiftKey, whose software keyboard and SDK powers more than 300 million Android and iOS devices. Software keyboards such as SwiftKey and Word Flow are used to speed up input: Rather than pecking at individual letters, users slide their finger from one letter to another, drawing a shape on the touchscreen. The software analyses the pattern to identify which word they are trying to type.

SwiftKeyuses artificial intelligence techniques to speed users' typing. Last October SwiftKey announced an alpha version of a new neural-network-based SwiftKey keyboard that does a better job of predicting which word the user will type next.

Most such systems perform the hard computation on a server, sending a trickle of data from the smartphone to the cloud -- including everything the user types.

SwiftKey estimates that its users have saved nearly 10 trillion keystrokes, across 100 languages, saving more than 100,000 years in combined typing time. The app was launched initially on Android in 2010 and arrived on iOS less than two years ago.

Microsoft said it would continue to develop SwiftKey’s keyboard apps for Android and iOS as well as explore scenarios for the integration of the core technology across Microsoft's product and services portfolio.