In September 2005, ScanSoft Inc. acquired and merged with Nuance Communications, a natural language spinoff from SRI International.

[citation needed] Prior to 2001, ScanSoft focused primarily on desktop imaging software such as TextBridge,[5] PaperPort and OmniPage.

Beginning with the December 2001 acquisition of Lernout & Hauspie assets, the company moved into the speech recognition business and began to compete with Nuance.

Lernout & Hauspie had acquired speech recognition company Dragon Systems in June 2001, shortly before becoming bankrupt in October.

[8] In 2013, Nuance confirmed that its natural language processing algorithms supported Apple's Siri voice assistant.

[10] On April 12, 2021, Microsoft announced that it will buy Nuance Communications for $19.7 billion, or $56 a share, a 22% increase over the previous closing price.