The companies will merge as a result of the acquisition and will seek to expand their work in the automotive interior sensing market, as well as media analytics and human factors research.

The deal will also expand Gothenburg-based Smart Eye’s presence in north Africa and eastern US.

Affectiva was part of MIT Media Lab until 2009, and uses deep learning, computer vision, speech science and real-world data to detect human emotions, cognitive states, activities, interactions and objects people use.

Dr Rana el Kaliouby, co-founder and chief executive of Affectiva, said: “This is an exciting opportunity for us to join Smart Eye in bringing to market advanced AI with more comprehensive capabilities than either of us could provide alone.

“Not only are our technologies very complementary, so are our values, our teams, our culture, and perhaps most importantly, our vision for the future.”

Martin Krantz, founder and chief executive of Smart Eye, said: “Affectiva’s pioneering work in establishing the field of emotion AI has served as a powerful platform for bringing this technology to market at scale.”