M&A News: Meta Buys Voice AI Startup PlayAI to Boost Wearables and Apps
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Why Does Meta's Acquisition of PlayAI Matter?
Meta plans to leverage PlayAI's voice AI expertise in enhancing its AI Characters, Meta AI, Wearables, and audio content creation. According to the memo, the entire PlayAI team is expected to join Meta next week and will report to Johan Schalkwyk, who was recently hired from another voice AI startup, Sesame AI. The memo also stated that PlayAI's 'work in creating natural voices, along with a platform for easy voice creation, is a great match for our work and road map.'
PlayAI uses large language models (LLMs) that are trained on hundreds of millions of real-life conversations to create advanced, natural-sounding voice AI models. PlayAI's latest models support over 30 languages, offering low-latency and high-quality voice cloning.
Meta Is on an AI Hiring Spree
Meta is aggressively pursuing leadership in AI, rapidly hiring top talent and entire teams to build its Superintelligence Labs and compete with rivals like OpenAI, Google (GOOGL), and Anthropic. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally involved in recruiting top AI executives, and the company is committed to investing billions in AI infrastructure.
Meta has weakened rival teams by hiring their top AI talent such as Ruoming Pang, formerly of Apple (AAPL), and OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal. The company reportedly attracted these executives with compensation packages exceeding $100 million annually.
Is META Stock a Buy?
Analysts remain highly optimistic about Meta Platforms' long-term stock outlook. On TipRanks, META stock has a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 41 Buys and four Hold ratings. Also, the average Meta Platforms price target of $735.21 implies 2.5% upside potential from current levels. Year-to-date, META stock has gained 22.8%.
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