Within the newest chapter in Meta’s AI shopping for and hiring spree, Meta has acquired AI voice cloning startup PlayAI.
Meta confirmed the acquisition to Bloomberg, however did not state the deal’s worth. In keeping with an inner memo leaked to Bloomberg, the “complete PlayAI group,” round 35 individuals, will be part of Meta this week. They may report back to Johan Schalkwyk, a former speech AI researcher at Google who just lately joined Meta from one other AI voice startup referred to as Sesame AI.
PlayAI’s core product is a voice cloning device that may generate human-sounding voices. The startup has partnered with firms like Walgreens and Salesforce to create voice brokers for companies which are obtainable to reply questions, deal with transactions, and schedule appointments.
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PlayAI’s “work in creating pure voices, together with a platform for simple voice creation, is a superb match for our work and street map, throughout AI Characters, Meta AI, Wearables, and audio content material creation,” Meta wrote within the leaked memo.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Meta Join in September 2024. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures
Meta has been hiring and buying AI expertise aggressively in latest months. In June, the corporate made one in every of its greatest investments but, pouring $14.3 billion into AI knowledge coaching startup Scale AI in alternate for a 49% stake within the startup and entry to new expertise.
The deal introduced Scale AI’s former CEO, Alexandr Wang, to Meta as its new Chief AI Officer and head of a brand new group targeted on growing superintelligence, or AI that surpasses human intelligence. Meta is paying high greenback to assemble a gaggle of about 50 specialists who will work to develop superintelligence with the purpose of in the future bringing it to Meta’s merchandise, together with its AI sensible glasses and chatbot. Scale AI’s valuation greater than doubled after the funding, rising from $14 billion to $29 billion.
Meta has additionally been poaching AI researchers and engineers from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic for its new superintelligence group with aggressive compensation, which might go as much as 9 figures. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 41, introduced final month that former Google DeepMind researchers Jack Rae and Pei Solar and former OpenAI workers Trapit Bansal and Hongyu Ren could be becoming a member of the superintelligence group.
Moreover, new particulars emerged final week that Meta is reportedly compensating former Apple engineer Ruoming Pang greater than $200 million throughout a number of years to affix its superintelligence effort — greater than double the $74.6 million Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner made final yr.
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Meta inventory was up over 19% year-to-date on the time of writing. The corporate has a market worth of $1.81 trillion, making it the sixth largest on the earth by market capitalization.
Within the newest chapter in Meta’s AI shopping for and hiring spree, Meta has acquired AI voice cloning startup PlayAI.
Meta confirmed the acquisition to Bloomberg, however did not state the deal’s worth. In keeping with an inner memo leaked to Bloomberg, the “complete PlayAI group,” round 35 individuals, will be part of Meta this week. They may report back to Johan Schalkwyk, a former speech AI researcher at Google who just lately joined Meta from one other AI voice startup referred to as Sesame AI.
PlayAI’s core product is a voice cloning device that may generate human-sounding voices. The startup has partnered with firms like Walgreens and Salesforce to create voice brokers for companies which are obtainable to reply questions, deal with transactions, and schedule appointments.
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