Meta completes acquisition of voice cloning AI startup PlayAI
Just weeks after news about Meta’s interest in voice-cloning artificial intelligence (AI) start-up PlayAI emerged, the company finalized the acquisition.
Image by Ascannio | Shutterstock
Just weeks after news about Meta’s interest in voice-cloning artificial intelligence (AI) start-up PlayAI emerged, the company finalized the acquisition.
PlayAI’s entire team will join Meta next week, according to an internal memo that Bloomberg reviewed.
The team will report to Johan Schalkwyk, who used to be in charge of speech AI research for Google and recently joined Meta from a separate voice AI startup, Sesame AI Inc.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed the acquisition to Bloomberg, although details about the purchase were not disclosed.
PlayAI claims to offer “unbelievably accurate, high-quality AI voice cloning in just 30 seconds”, allegedly being able to accurately clone a voice.
Meta has been heavily focused on AI this year, recruiting top talent to work on its AI features and emphasizing open-source AI development.
The Meta AI chatbot, which was first launched in September 2023, is now aiming to become your ultimate personal virtual assistant, which can handle complex tasks.
In June, Meta also finalized a $14.3 billion investment in data labeling startup Scale AI and poached its founder Alexandr Wang to lead a new superintelligence research lab. This followed Meta raising its capital spending forecast for 2025 to as much as $72 billion.