(Bloomberg) -- A lead researcher behind OpenAI’s voice assistant has raised $40 million in funding from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz for a new artificial intelligence startup focused on helping people have better spoken conversations with computers. WaveForms AI, which launched Monday, is working on AI audio software to pick up on emotional cues and enable more seamless verbal interactions with machines, co-founder and chief executive officer 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 moving beyond text-based chatbots to offer human-sounding voice features. 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, which is meant to respond in nearly real time to users’ spoken requests with a dynamic, human-sounding voice of 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.
Conneau said WaveForms aims to build AI that can produce more immersive voice interactions. It’s a challenge that involves developing software that can interpret not just the words people use but also how they speak, without being specifically trained in advance on all the nuances of how they interact, Conneau said. For example, an AI voice assistant might need to pick up on the hesitation in a person’s voice during a conversation about a math problem and use that cue to adapt.“If you get a bit frustrated, as well, it could also adapt and just reassure you a little bit,” Conneau said. The assistant might then respond by saying, “It’s OK. It’s complicated content. Let’s take a step back and go step by step so that you understand this concept.”
WaveForms is still small, with no product yet and just five employees, including co-founder Coralie Lemaitre, who is married to Conneau and previously worked at Google.
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