Meta on Monday announced the acquisition of PlayAI, a startup known for creating human-sounding AI voice technology.
This purchase follows Meta’s recent acquisition of Scale AI, highlighting its aggressive push into voice and artificial intelligence advances.
The entire PlayAI team of approximately 35 members will join Meta, reporting to Johan Schalkwyk, a new Meta voice AI lead with experience from Sesame AI Inc.
PlayAI’s role in enhancing Meta’s voice AI capabilities
PlayAI specialises in voice cloning, multilingual speech synthesis, and programmable voice agents.
Their technology can generate natural, interactive voices that businesses can deploy for customer service and other applications.
PlayAI’s partnerships with companies such as Walgreens and Salesforce demonstrate its commercial impact so far.
Meta sees PlayAI’s platform for easy voice creation perfectly aligning with its broader AI efforts across Meta AI, wearables like Quest VR and Ray-Ban smart glasses, and audio content creation tools.
This acquisition brings fresh talent and proprietary technology into Meta’s AI portfolio, helping Meta build more innovative voice systems that sound more like real people.
The team’s knowledge will contribute to projects ranging from realistic AI characters to new voice interaction solutions across Meta’s ecosystem.
Meta’s strategic AI expansion through acquisitions and talent
Meta’s buying spree in AI continues with this deal, following its $14.3 billion acquisition of Scale AI earlier this year.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision involves assembling top researchers and startups to accelerate Meta’s goal of creating advanced AI systems with human-like abilities.
Notably, as part of the Scale AI deal, CEO Alexandr Wang joined Meta to head the new Meta Superintelligence Labs aimed at pioneering AI breakthroughs.
Moreover, Meta has aggressively recruited elite AI scientists from competitors like OpenAI, offering extensive equity and multi-year contracts reportedly reaching $300 million.
These moves reinforce Meta’s determination to lead in AI innovation and integrate these capabilities deeply into their platforms.
With PlayAI now part of Meta, expect more human-like voice interactions and smarter voice-driven experiences to roll out across Meta’s products soon.