Meta continues acquisition spree, grabs voice AI startup PlayAI

Meta has acquired Play AI, an artificial intelligence startup that specialises in creating human-like voices.

According to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg, the entire Play AI team will be joining Meta next week. They will report to Johan Schalkwyk, who recently moved to Meta from another voice AI startup, Sesame AI Inc.

Meta’s memo stated that Play AI’s “work in creating natural voices, along with a platform for easy voice creation, is a great match for our work and road map, across AI Characters, Meta AI, Wearables and audio content creation”.


However, the financial details of the acquisition were not made public.

Recently, Meta struck a similar deal, acquiring a 49% stake in Scale AI. As part of that deal, Scale AI’s CEO, Alexandr Wang, joined Meta to head a new superintelligence team.

Also Read: Money isn’t everything: Meta’s Superintelligence Labs roundly rejected by some despite tempting pay offers

Meta has been on an investment and hiring spree in AI for a few weeks now, including aggressively recruiting from OpenAI. According to a report by The Verge, Meta has hired as many as 10 leading researchers and developers from OpenAI, with some compensation packages reportedly reaching up to $300 million over four years, including equity.

However, Meta has disputed this figure.

OpenAI is not Meta’s only source for new talent. The company has also made several high-profile hires, including Daniel Gross, CEO of AI startup Safe Superintelligence; Ruoming Pang, who leads Apple’s Foundation Models team; and Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub.