Meta has quietly picked up another AI voice company. The social media giant has acquired WaveForms, a young startup working on advanced AI speech technology. The deal amount has not been disclosed. This is Meta’s second big AI audio buy in a month, coming right after it bought PlayAI.
WaveForms was founded just eight months ago, but had already raised $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz. That funding round valued the company at $160 million before the acquisition. The startup’s team included some serious talent. Co-founder Alexis Conneau previously worked at Meta and OpenAI, where he helped create the GPT-4o Advanced Voice Mode models. Another co-founder, Coralie Lemaitre, was a former Google advertising strategist. Both have now joined Meta.
WaveForms’ focus was ambitious. Its mission was to solve the “Speech Turing Test” — making AI speech so natural that it could be mistaken for a real human voice. The company was also working on what it called “Emotional General Intelligence,” a system aimed at understanding human self-awareness and emotion in conversation.
Meta has been on a hiring and acquisition spree for its new AI division, Superintelligence Labs. Voice AI seems to be a major area of interest. With PlayAI and now WaveForms, Meta is clearly building a strong base of technology and expertise for lifelike, interactive AI assistants.
The startup’s website is now offline, and it is not yet clear what will happen to all of its staff. Reports suggest that about 14 employees were at WaveForms before the deal. Some might move into Meta’s AI teams, while others could be reassigned or leave.
Meta’s push into hyper-realistic AI voices could have big implications. Lifelike speech can make AI assistants far more engaging, but it also raises questions about deepfake audio, consent, and how people will trust what they hear. For now, Meta seems focused on the potential and is spending heavily to lead the race.
