Apple may have acquired startup Fashwell, which specializes in product recognition in images

THE MacRumors reported that Apple may have acquired the startup Fashwell, creator of a technology based on artificial intelligence capable of recognizing products in images – and, consequently, facilitating the process of selling such products to interested people.

The purchase was not confirmed, but the evidence is strong. This is because the co-founder and CEO of startup, Matthias Dantone, and CTOs, Lukas Bossard and Michael Emmersberger, recently updated their resumes stating that they have been working at Apple since last January in the machine learning area (machine learning) – that is, the chances of the acquisition taking place at the end of 2018 are great.

THE MacRumors He also indicated that five out of six other former Fashwell employees are at Apple, with many of them also on the machine learning team. The Fashwell website is still live, but hasn’t been updated since late 2018 – as has the company’s Twitter account.

Fashwell startup website

In addition to visual photo search technology, the API created by Fashwell supports tags, which basically makes any image compatible with the visual search feature; the tool also offers a visual recommendation (when recognizing a product, others can be suggested based on this).

The speculation of MacRumors is that Apple can use such technology to improve its customers’ shopping experience, whether through the Apple Online Store or the Apple Store app.