Meta acquires voice generator startup PlayAI

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has acquired the voice generator platform PlayAI. A report from Bloomberg says it reviewed an internal memo confirming that the entire PlayAI team is set to join Meta next week, and will report to Johan Schalkwyk, who recently came to Meta from the voice AI startup, Sesame AI Inc.

Meta’s memo reportedly identifies PlayAI’s “work in creating natural voices, along with a platform for easy voice creation” as “a great match for our work and road map, across AI Characters, Meta AI, Wearables and audio content creation.”

Financial terms of the deal between Meta and PlayAI were not disclosed.

In April, PlayAI announced a strategic partnership with deepfake detection firm Reality Defender, enabling the latter to train its tools on data generated from PlayAI’s voice models, to improve accuracy. The voice startup’s declarations at the time were lofty, stating that the partnership reinforced the firm’s belief that “progress in generative AI must be met with equally advanced safeguards.”

“Generative AI should empower, not endanger,” said Mahmoud Felfel, co-founder and CEO of PlayAI, saying the agreement would ensure PlayAI “remains a force for good – and a standard bearer for trust.”

Meta – perhaps no longer the primary global engine for distributing online misinformation and disinformation, but surely a pioneer – has recently proven itself malleable in the matter of online protections, eliminating its content moderation system and fact checking process in tandem with the arrival of the second Donald Trump administration. It also continues to fight, in the guise of industry association NetChoice, against age check legislation for social media on the service level.

One can assume the paycheck from Meta is good enough for Felfel that he will be willing to overlook some of the mega company’s ethical failings.

However, Meta may be less interested in deploying PlayAI than in simply consuming it. The company has been actively poaching employees from rival AI firms and making big investments in the technology, recently launching its Meta Superintelligence Labs under the leadership of former Scale CEO Alexandr Wang, in an effort to lock down (i.e. buy) a significant role in the market. Recall that, for a while, Facebook’s biggest competitor was Instagram – acquired by Zuckerberg’s firm in April of 2012, and a Meta product since the company rebranded in 2021.

Article Topics

acquisitions  |  generative AI  |  Meta  |  PlayAI  |  synthetic voice