Facebook Inc. has added another tool to its growing arsenal of tech companies, this time with a focus on voice recognition AI. The social media giant has just acquired Wit.ai, an 18-month-old Palo Alto technology startup that designs natural language processing software.

Wit.ai creates software that supports “Natural Language for the Internet of Things.”  The company’s tools are used by over 5,500 developers and support a full suite of platforms including iOS, Android, JavaScript and more. According to Wit.ai, its software “learns human language from every interaction,” sharing that information across developers.

“It is an incredible acceleration in the execution of our vision,” Wit.ai wrote about its purchase by Facebook on its blog. “Facebook has the resources and talent to help us take the next step. Facebook’s mission is to connect everyone and build amazing experiences for the over 1.3 billion people on the platform – technology that understands natural language is a big part of that, and we think we can help.

“The platform will remain open and become entirely free for everyone. Developers are the life of our project and the energy, enthusiasm and passion of the community has helped turn what was once just a lofty dream, into a reality. We want to continue to build with you.”

Competing with Siri?

The cost of Wit.ai’s purchase has not been made public, and neither has Facebook’s specific reasons for acquiring the company. One likely use for Wit.ai’s software is implementing native voice recognition capabilities to Facebook’s core mobile app, as well as the Facebook Messenger app.

But while Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana can be used to perform internet searches, set reminders, launch mobile apps and more, it is unclear what the benefits would be to adding voice recognition to Facebook.

With the company’s plans to dramatically expand its video services over the next five years, perhaps voice commands could be used to easily browse videos similar to the way the Xbox Kinect is used with Netflix. Another possibility would be for Facebook to farm out Wit.ai’s services as a developer, providing voice functionality to programs created with Facebook’s APIs.

Then again, maybe Facebook just wants to be able to chat with its new drones.