Meta, the owner of social media giants like WhatsApp and Instagram, has completed the deal to acquire PlayAI, an artificial intelligence startup focused on voice technology, according to a report by Bloomberg. As per an internal memo viewed by the agency, the “entire PlayAI” team will join Meta next week.
The PlayAI team will report to Johan Schalkwyk, who recently joined the tech giant from a separate voice AI startup called Sesame AI. A Meta spokesperson confirmed the acquisition to Bloomberg but did not disclose the sum paid by the company to buy PlayAI.
As per the memo, the PlayAI team’s “work in creating natural voices, along with a platform for easy voice creation, is a great match for our work and roadmap across AI Characters, Meta AI, Wearables, and audio content creation.”
Notably, Meta has made AI its biggest priority this year, from investing in infrastructure like chips and data centres to recruiting new talent to build its latest AI models and features. The eye-opening moment for the company came with the launch of its LLaMA 4 models earlier this year, which failed to get much recognition and paled in comparison to competition from the likes of Google and OpenAI.
Since then, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced a new AI division called Meta Superintelligence Labs, aimed at achieving “superintelligence” in AI systems before any other company. The division is led by Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of AI startup Scale AI, which Meta recently acquired for $14.3 billion.
Apart from Wang, Meta has been poaching top AI talent from the likes of OpenAI and Google, offering up to $100 million in bonuses to new employees. Among the major talent poached by the company are the makers of the GPT-4 and GPT-4o models.
Meta also managed to bring in Apple’s top executive in charge of artificial intelligence, Ruoming Pang, reportedly offering him a pay package in excess of $200 million.
