At the end of June this year, it was reported that Meta was interested in acquiring AI voice startup PlayAI.NewsBloomberg NewsGet the messageIt is said that Meta has completed the acquisition agreement with PlayAI, and the PlayAI team members will be incorporated into Meta as early as next week. They will be led by Johan Schalkwyk, the former head of Google's voice AI who recently joined Meta from a voice startup.
PlayAI's AI tools are designed to rapidly replicate user voices and generate natural-sounding virtual voices for widespread use across websites, apps, and voice communication devices. Meta stated in an internal memo that the PlayAI team's expertise is a "strong fit" with its existing AI development roadmap, which will support future voice interaction applications for Meta's AI assistant, AI avatars, and its smart glasses and wearable devices.
Although Meta did not disclose the specific details of the acquisition amount, this move is seen as a follow-up to the $6 billion investment announced in June this year.investmentAfter acquiring data labeling startup Scale AI, Meta once again accelerated its "AI Superintelligence" strategy. Meta not only invested heavily in the company but also successfully recruited Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead the newly established AI research lab.
In recent years, Meta has actively recruited AI technical talents from competitors.Reuters news report statedMeta not only offered a signing bonus of up to $1 million, but also poached some core developers of the GPT-4 model and ChatGPT from OpenAI, and also attracted members of Google Gemini's technical team to switch jobs. Even Apple's chief executive in charge of high-end AI function research and development is rumored to have switched to the Meta camp.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently oversaw the formation of an AI Superintelligence team, with the goal of developing a general-purpose AI system "smarter than humans." Zuckerberg once described future AI as "a genius child with extraordinary learning abilities." The tech industry's responsibility is to instill positive values and ethical principles in AI from an early age, ensuring it becomes a more trustworthy tool and partner.
The acquisition of PlayAI is expected to give Meta greater advantages in AI character expressiveness and human voice simulation. This will not only enhance the personalized interaction of AI assistants, but also extend the voice-activated experience to virtual reality, mixed reality, and smart glasses.
