Nuance has announced the acquisition of Vlingo, Inc. As a result of an increased demand for advanced voice recognition interfaces combining language understanding and semantic processing, the two companies are combining their expertise to deliver natural language interfaces.

Vlingo is a Virtual Assistant that combines voice recognition text technology, natural language processing, and the company’s Intent Engine that understand the intent of the user and takes the appropriate action. Vlingo was founded in 2006 and is backed by AT&T, Charles River Ventures, Yahoo! and Sigma Partners. Vlingo’s headquarters are located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In recent months, there has been a large increase in the demand for the capabilities of a virtual assistant and voice recognition, resulting in a $5 billion market opportunity spanning cars, phones, tablets, music players, televisions, navigation devices, computers and more. “Inspired by the introduction of services such as Apple’s Siri and our own Dragon Go!, virtually every mobile and consumer electronics company on the planet is looking for ways to integrate natural, conversational voice interactions into their mobile products, applications, and services,” said Mike Thompson, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Nuance Mobile.  “By acquiring Vlingo, we are able to accelerate the pace of innovation to meet this demand.”