Meta Acquires AI Audio Startup WaveForms, Bolstering Voice AI Capabilities

Meta acquires AI audio startup WaveForms | TechCrunch

Meta has acquired AI voice startup WaveForms for an undisclosed sum, The Information reports. It's the company's latest buy to strengthen its new AI unit, Superintelligence Labs, and Meta's second major AI audio acquisition in the last month after it bought PlayAI. WaveForms, founded just eight months ago, raised $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz in a round that valued the company at $160 million pre-money, per PitchBook data. Two of the startup's co-founders - former Meta and OpenAI researcher Alexis Conneau, and former Google advertising strategist Coralie Lemaitre - have reportedly joined Meta. While at OpenAI, Conneau co-created GPT4-o Advanced Voice Mode neural networks. TechCrunch has reached out to WaveForms to find out if its third co-founder and chief technologist, Kartikay Khandelwal, will also join Meta, as well as the outcome of the deal for the roughly 14 other staffers (per LinkedIn) at the company. WaveForms appears to have taken down its own website, but the company's LinkedIn page describes its mission as solving the "Speech Turing Test," which tries to measure if a listener can distinguish between human and AI-generated speech. WaveForms was also developing "Emotional General Intelligence," which focuses on understanding individual self-awareness and management.

Meta reportedly acquires voice AI startup WaveForms - SiliconANGLE

Meta Platforms Inc. has reportedly acquired WaveForms AI Inc., a developer of artificial intelligence models optimized to understand speech. The Information broke the news on Thursday. It's unclear how much Meta is paying for WaveForms. Last December, the startup raised $40 million at a $200 million valuation, which suggests the sale price was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In recent months, Meta and other tech giants have paid significant premiums to recruit the staff of venture-backed AI startups. WaveForms was founded in 2024 by Alexis Conneau and Coralie Lemaitre. Conneau is a former OpenAI researcher who worked on GPT-4's Voice Mode feature, which allows users to interact with the model using their voice. Lemaitre is a former Google LLC ad strategist. When WaveForms announced its $40 million funding round last year, Bloomberg reported that the company didn't yet have a product. A blog post from investor Andreessen Horowitz, which led the round, stated that WaveForms was in the process of training an "end-to-end audio language model." Processing speech historically required three different AI models. One transcribes the user's speech into a text prompt, another generates a text-based response to the prompt and a third turns the response into speech. The Andreessen Horowitz blog post indicated that WaveForms' technology allows one model to perform all three tasks, a potentially more efficient approach. The company also planned to equip its model with the ability to detect emotional cues in speech. The goal was to have the model adapt its output based on those cues. According to The Information, Conneau and Lemaitre have joined Meta as part of the acquisition. It's unclear whether they will work at TBD Labs, the business unit that is leading the Facebook parent's AI research efforts. The Wall Street Journal reported today that the unit is staffed by many of the researchers Meta has poached from OpenAI and Google in recent weeks. WaveForms is the second voice AI startup that Meta has acquired in the past month. It previously bought Play AI Inc., which developed a platform that can create voice AI agents for tasks such as processing customer support requests. The company raised $21 million prior to its sale. Meta reportedly told staffers in a memo that Play AI will help enhance its Meta AI chatbot's voice features. Like ChatGPT, the chatbot provides support for voice commands. Additionally, Meta is developing a feature that allows Meta AI to translate speech in Instagram Reels videos. The WaveForms acquisition may also be part of the effort to improve the chatbot. Additionally, the technology and know-how that Meta is gaining through the deal may help enhance its Llama large language model series. Many of the algorithms in the lineup can process voice input. According to today's Journal report, TBD Labs is working on a new Llama model known as Llama 4.5 and Llama 4.X internally. The research group is said to be focused on making Meta's LLMs better at reasoning tasks. It's unclear when the upcoming Llama model might launch or if it will be available under an open-source license like its predecessors.

Meta's Latest Acquisition in the Ongoing Talent War is WaveForms AI

The AI startup specialises in detecting and replicating emotion in audio Meta is reportedly continuing its recruitment offensive to build up its new artificial intelligence (AI) division Superintelligence Labs. As per the report, the Menlo Park-based tech giant's latest spoils of the war is WaveForms, an AI startup working with audio-focused models. While the terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, the co-founders of the company were reportedly hired by Meta. This comes just a month after the company reportedly acquired Play AI, another startup working in the AI audio space. According to The Information, Meta has completed the acquisition process to purchase WaveForms, an audio large language model (LLM) research and product startup. On LinkedIn, the company says it is working to solve the Speech Turing Test and creating "Emotional General Intelligence." Notably, the Speech Turing Test is a variation of Alan Turing's original Turing Test that evaluates whether a listener can tell if a voice or speech is generated by a human or by AI. If the listener cannot confidently pick an option, the test is considered to be passed. It is considered one of the important benchmarks of voice-based AI. The San Francisco-based AI startup was founded by ex-Meta and OpenAI researcher Alexis Conneau, and ex-Google advertising strategist Coralie Lemaitre in December 2024. Despite its short run, the company reportedly raised $40 million (roughly Rs. 350 crore) in funding earlier this year, in a round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. As per the report, both Conneau and Lemaitre will join Meta's Superintelligence Labs as part of the acquisition deal. The tech giant might also make use of the tech stack of WaveForms to develop its voice-focused AI products. Meta already owns Play AI, another voice AI startup it acquired last month. The company's focus on targeting voice AI startups highlights its intention to fill a visible gap in Meta AI's capabilities. While the company is reportedly working on adding real-time two-way voice conversations with the chatbot, it remains significantly behind compared to competitors like OpenAI and Google, which have released natural sounding voice features within ChatGPT and Gemini, respectively.

Meta acquires AI audio startup WaveForms - The Economic Times

Meta Platforms has acquired WaveForms AI, a startup using artificial intelligence (AI) to detect and mimic emotion in audio. Founded by former OpenAI and Google employees, WaveForms launched in December 2024. Its founders, Alexis Conneau and Coralie Lemaitre, will join Meta's Superintelligence Labs as part of Meta's growing focus on AI.Meta Platforms has acquired WaveForms AI, a startup that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to understand and replicate emotion in audio, according to The Information. The company was founded by Alexis Conneau, who previously worked on audio research at Meta and OpenAI, and Coralie Lemaitre, a former ad strategist at Google. Launched in December 2024, WaveForms AI had earlier announced receiving $40 million of funding in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Following the acquisition, Conneau and Lemaitre will join Meta's new AI division, Superintelligence Labs, the report said. The move is part of Meta's broader push to strengthen its capabilities in AI-powered audio. The company recently hired Johan Schalkwyk, a former Google Fellow known for his work in speech AI. Schalkwyk has joined Superintelligence Labs as a Voice Lead, according to his LinkedIn page. Last month, Meta also acquired Play AI, a startup that specialises in creating human-like voices. Meta has stepped up its focus on AI, bringing in talent from leading companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. In recent months, the company has recruited several high-profile figures, including Daniel Gross, founder of the AI startup Safe Superintelligence, Ruoming Pang, who headed Apple's Foundation Models team, and Nat Friedman, former CEO of GitHub.