Apple has acquired Voysis, an Ireland-basedan artificial intelligence startup that developed a platform for digital voice assistants to better understand people’s natural language.

Voysis has developed a software designed to improve digital assistants inside online shopping apps, so it could respond more accurately to voice commands from users. The technology could narrow product search results by processing shopping phrases such as “I need a new LED TV” and “My budget is $1,000.”

Apple just said that it “buys smaller technology companies from time to time," without providing any further details.

In fact, Apple has been buying many AI startups in recent years, including Turi, Xnor.ai, and Laserlike.

Voysis’s system uses Wavenets, an AI-based method for creating more human-like computer speech that was first developed by Google’s DeepMind in 2016.