Meta buys AI voice startup WaveForms
Meta has purchased AI voice startup WaveForms for an undisclosed amount, according to The Information, marking the social media giant’s latest push to expand its new AI-focused division, Superintelligence Labs. The deal comes just weeks after Meta’s acquisition of PlayAI, making it the company’s second major AI audio acquisition in under a month.
Founded only eight months ago, WaveForms had already made a splash in the AI audio scene. The company raised $40 million from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, achieving a $160 million pre-money valuation, according to PitchBook data.
Two of WaveForms’ co-founders are now set to rejoin familiar territory at Meta: Alexis Conneau, a former Meta and OpenAI researcher credited with co-creating the GPT-4o Advanced Voice Mode neural networks, and Coralie Lemaitre, a former Google advertising strategist. Whether the startup’s third co-founder, Kartikay Khandelwal—its chief technologist—will make the move to Meta remains unclear. The fate of WaveForms’ roughly 14 other employees is also unknown.
WaveForms’ own website has gone offline, but its LinkedIn page still outlines its ambitious mission: to solve the “Speech Turing Test”—determining whether listeners can tell apart AI-generated voices from human speech. The company was also working on “Emotional General Intelligence”, a technology aimed at enhancing AI’s ability to interpret and respond to nuanced human emotions, with a focus on individual self-awareness and emotional regulation.
With this latest acquisition, Meta is clearly signaling its intent to lead in the emerging AI audio space. By combining WaveForms’ cutting-edge voice synthesis and emotional intelligence research with the resources of Superintelligence Labs, the company is positioning itself to compete more aggressively in AI-powered human–computer interaction.
