A lead researcher behind OpenAI’s voice assistant has raised $40 million from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz for a new artificial intelligence startup that aims to help people have better spoken conversations with computers.
WaveForms AI, launched Monday, is working on AI audio software to pick up emotional signals and enable smoother verbal interactions with machines, co-founder and CEO Alexis Conneau told Bloomberg News. The seed funding values WaveForms at $200 million, the company said.
The startup is one of a growing number of AI companies that are moving beyond text-based chatbots to offer human-sounding voice capabilities. The technology offers the promise of creating more versatile digital assistants and customer service agents, among other use cases.
At OpenAI, Conneau developed the company’s Advanced Voice Mode, intended to respond in near real time to users’ voice requests with a dynamic, human-sounding voice all its own. Conneau left OpenAI in August and began working on San Francisco-based WaveForms in September – the same month OpenAI rolled out the voice assistant to all of its paid ChatGPT users.