Meta has acquired Play AI, a startup developing a voice cloning tool

Meta* has struck a deal to buy Play AI, a California-based startup that creates artificial intelligence-based voice cloning technology. This was reported by Bloomberg, citing internal company documents.

The entire Play AI team will move to Meta* as early as next week. The new hires will work under Johan Schalkwyk, who was previously head of speech AI research at Google before moving to another voice-related startup.

Play AI has developed a tool that can create digital copies of a user’s voice, as well as generate new, realistic voices for use in apps, websites and phones. In a memo, Meta* said the startup’s developments would complement its own projects well, including the Meta* AI assistant, AI-enabled characters and wearable devices. The company confirmed the deal, but did not disclose its amount.

In recent months, Mark Zuckerberg has been actively building a team for a new AI lab that aims to create artificial intelligence that surpasses human intelligence. In June, Meta* finalized a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI to bring in its CEO Alexander Wang to lead the lab. Scale AI is in the business of partitioning data to train AI models.

In addition, Meta* has been actively poaching talent from rival companies, offering bonuses of up to $100 million. The new hires include OpenAI developers involved in ChatGPT and GPT-4, as well as former Google employees who worked on Gemini. Earlier, Bloomberg also reported that Apple lost one of its top AI executives, who moved to Meta*.

* Owned by Meta, the company is recognized as an extremist organization in Russia and its activities are banned.

The story Meta acquires Play AI startup developing voice cloning tool was first published on ITZine.ru.