Meta Platforms has bought WaveForms AI, a young startup whose software can identify and reproduce emotional cues in speech, according to reports from The Information confirmed by TechCrunch. The deal price was not disclosed. WaveForms was founded in December 2024 and in March raised a $40 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz that valued the company at about $160 million pre-money, PitchBook data show. The company has been working on a “Speech Turing Test” and what it calls “Emotional General Intelligence” to make AI-generated voices indistinguishable from human speech. Two WaveForms co-founders—former Meta and OpenAI researcher Alexis Conneau and ex-Google advertising strategist Coralie Lemaitre—are joining Meta. Their team will sit inside the company’s new Superintelligence Labs unit, created last month to consolidate Meta’s core AI research and product groups. The purchase is Meta’s second AI-audio transaction in as many months, following its July takeover of PlayAI, and underscores Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to embed advanced generative-AI capabilities across the company’s products and advertising platforms.