Photo courtesy of Yonhap News

 

[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has acquired WaveForms, an AI voice startup, as part of its push to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence that surpasses human capabilities.



According to reports from The Information and other foreign media outlets on August 10, the acquisition is aimed at strengthening Meta’s “superintelligence lab.” This marks Meta’s second major move in the AI audio space, following its acquisition of PlayAI last month. In that deal, Meta committed USD 14.3 billion in investment and brought on Alexander Wang, founder and CEO of PlayAI.



While the value of the WaveForms acquisition has not yet been disclosed, the startup was founded just eight months ago and has a team of roughly ten employees. It had previously raised USD 40 million from leading venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, achieving a valuation of USD 160 million at the time.



WaveForms specializes in developing AI voices indistinguishable from human speech and aims to build voice AI systems capable of understanding and expressing human emotions, self-awareness, and self-regulation. The company’s co-founders include Alexis Cono, formerly of Meta and OpenAI, and Coralie Lemaitre, a former Google advertising strategist — both of whom are now set to join Meta.

 

 

 

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