In September, Alexis Conneau made headlines when he departed OpenAI, where he led the development of ChatGPT's advanced voice features. The project had sparked controversy when one of its AI-generated voices bore a striking resemblance to actress Scarlett Johansson. Johansson revealed she had been approached to license her voice for the project and had refused. Although OpenAI denied intentionally mimicking Johansson's voice, comparisons to her role in the 2013 film Her were unavoidable, igniting debates around AI ethics and imitation.
Now, Conneau is charting a new course with WaveForms AI, co-founded with Coralie Lamaitre, an engineer turned strategist. Emerging from stealth today, WaveForms AI announced $40 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), valuing the startup at $200 million. The venture aims to elevate audio AI by pioneering what Conneau calls emotional general intelligence (EGI). The ultimate goal: creating AI models capable of perceiving and responding to human emotions with unprecedented nuance.
A Departure Marked by Controversy and Inspiration
Reflecting on the Johansson controversy, Conneau defended the project. "The ChatGPT voice was never meant to mimic Johansson,” he stated. However, he acknowledged the comparisons to Her, a film about a man’s emotional relationship with an AI assistant voiced by Johansson. "When they see the technology, they think about the movie right away," he said.
