Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has officially acquired Play AI, a startup specializing in artificial intelligence-generated, human-like voices.
This development was confirmed by a Meta spokesperson, as reported by Bloomberg.
According to the report, the entire Play AI team will be joining Meta next week, marking a strategic move to strengthen the tech giant’s capabilities in voice-based AI products and services.
An internal memo seen by Bloomberg highlighted the rationale behind the acquisition. The memo reportedly stated that Play AI’s “work in creating natural voices, along with a platform for easy voice creation, is a great match for our work and road map, across AI Characters, Meta AI, Wearables and audio content creation.”
The financial terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
Ongoing AI investments
Meta made a substantial strategic move by acquiring a 49% stake in Scale AI for $14.3 billion in late June 2025.
As part of this deal, Scale’s co-founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, has joined Meta in a key leadership role.
Zuckerberg has appointed Wang as Chief AI Officer and the head of Meta’s newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs, a division created to centralize and accelerate all of Meta’s artificial intelligence efforts.
Wang brings with him a distinguished track record from Scale AI, which he co-founded in 2016. Under his leadership, the company grew into a major player providing critical data infrastructure for AI training, serving clients like Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and the U.S. Department of Defense, reaching a valuation of $13.8 billion by 2024
In addition to Scale AI, Meta has been luring top talent from leading AI labs. According to Bloomberg, the company recently recruited Jack Rae, a principal researcher from Google DeepMind. Meta has also made several attempts to recruit from OpenAI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman disclosed during a podcast that Meta has offered up to $100 million in signing bonuses to his staff.
While Altman acknowledged Meta’s bold hiring efforts, he emphasized that none of OpenAI’s top talent had accepted these offers and questioned whether Meta’s culture was well-suited for meaningful innovation.
Despite the massive compensation offers, Altman argued that OpenAI’s employees are driven by deeper motivations than money, highlighting cultural alignment and mission-driven work as key factors in retaining talent. Meta had not issued any public comment at the time of the report.
What you should know
Until recently, Meta had primarily focused on building its artificial intelligence capabilities through in-house research and open-source projects, particularly its Llama large language model.
This approach stood in contrast to competitors like Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet, which have made substantial investments in external AI startups such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Meta, by comparison, maintained a strategy of self-reliance in AI development.
However, that strategy is now shifting. In January 2025, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that artificial intelligence would become Meta’s top priority going forward. As part of this commitment, the company unveiled plans to invest up to $65 billion in AI infrastructure and innovation throughout the year.
Meta is also reportedly in advanced discussions to raise up to $29 billion to fund its expansion into artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company is seeking $3 billion in equity and $26 billion in debt, with talks involving major private capital firms such as Apollo Global Management, KKR, Brookfield, Carlyle, and Pimco. The funding is intended to support the development of next-generation data centers in the United States, as Meta intensifies its investment in AI capabilities.
