Social media firm Meta Platforms (META) has acquired a small startup called WaveForms AI, which builds artificial intelligence tools that can understand and copy human emotions through voice. According to The Information, the company was founded by Alexis Conneau, who previously worked on audio research at both Meta and OpenAI, and Coralie Lemaitre, who worked in advertising strategy at Google (GOOGL). Although WaveForms AI only launched in December, it quickly raised $40 million from big investors like Andreessen Horowitz.
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The acquisition is part of Meta’s aggressive approach to become the leader in AI after facing some setbacks earlier this year. In fact, Meta had to delay its new Llama 4 language model because it wasn’t as strong in voice conversations as OpenAI’s models. And since CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes that people will soon talk to AI regularly throughout the day, buying WaveForms AI could help make Meta one of the go-to platforms. As a result, Conneau and Lemaitre will now join Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, the company’s new AI division.
In addition, Meta has recently hired experts from other AI voice companies like Sesame and bought another startup called PlayAI. It is also worth noting that the firm has been spending billions in order to poach talent from competitors, such as OpenAI and Apple (AAPL). Indeed, in June, Meta appointed Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang as its chief AI officer after committing $14.3 billion to his data-labeling company. It also brought in former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Safe Superintelligence founder Daniel Gross, and plans to partly buy out their venture fund, NFDG.
Is Meta a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on META stock based on 41 Buys, five Holds, and zero Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. Furthermore, the average META price target of $871.84 per share implies 13.9% upside potential.
