Twitter just bought a machine-learning startup called Magic Pony

Twitter has acquired Magic Pony Technology, a London-based machine-learning startup that specializes in visual processing. That means, according to Twitter’s blog post announcing the deal, that Magic Pony makes “algorithms that can understand the features of imagery.”

Put simply: Photo-recognition technology.

The Magic Pony employees will join Twitter Cortex, the company’s internal machine-learning team. It’s the third machine-learning acquisition that Twitter has made in the past three years: It also bought bought Madbits in 2014 and artificial intelligence startup Whetlab last summer.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wrote that the acquisition will “enhance our strength in live and video and opens up a whole lot of exciting creative possibilities for Twitter.” So it sounds like the technology will be used for more than just photos.

(Machine learning and artificial intelligence was a big part of Recode’s annual Code Conference this year — you can read more about it here.)

We’ve asked Twitter for more details on the deal, including a deal price, and will let you know what we hear.

Magic Pony / Twitter

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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