By Stephen NellisSAN FRANCISCO, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Apple on Thursday said it has acquired Q.ai, an Israeli startup working on artificial intelligence ​technology for audio. Apple did not disclose terms of the deal for ‌Q.ai, which was backed by venture capital firms Matter Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Spark Capital, ‌Exor and GV, formerly known as Google Ventures. The deal valued the startup at about $1.6 billion, according to a source familiar with the matter. Q.ai's 100 employees, including CEO Aviad ​Maizels and co-founders Yonatan Wexler and Avi Barliya, will join Apple, the ‌companies said. The PrimeSense deal eventually helped Apple move away from fingerprint sensors on its iPhones and toward facial recognition technology.