{"id":677769,"date":"2026-05-18T16:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T16:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/677769\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T16:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T16:06:14","slug":"openai-quietly-acquires-ai-voice-cloning-startup-weights-gg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/677769\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI quietly acquires AI voice cloning startup Weights.gg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/tag\/openai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">OpenAI<\/a> has made a quietly acquired Weights.gg, a startup specializing in AI-powered voice cloning known for cloning celebrity and public figure voices including Taylor Swift and Samuel L. Jackson.<\/p>\n<p>The creator of ChatGPT has acquired the intellectual property of the San Francisco-based startup, while its six-person team was integrated into different parts of OpenAI, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/15\/technology\/openai-weightsgg-voice-cloning.html?smid=nytcore-android-share\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according<\/a> to a New York Times article quoting unnamed sources.<\/p>\n<p>The news of the acquisition came after Weights.gg announced in March it was closing down. The company previously operated a consumer app, Replay, for AI audio production, enabling users to create and share custom AI voice models. The platform has attracted attention for cloning copyrighted voices, including Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, as well as those of politicians, including U.S. President Donald Trump and former President Joseph Biden.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, it is unclear how Weight.gg\u2019s technology will be incorporated with OpenAI\u2019s products.<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s own voice cloning tech, Voice Engine, was presented in 2024 but was not released publicly due to safety concerns. Instead, the company limited access to selected partners through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/202604\/voice-ai-expands-attack-surface-for-speaker-biometrics-as-apis-proliferate\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">API integrations<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The acquisition comes as technology companies face growing legal pressure over AI voice training. Last week, journalists, podcasters and audiobook narrators <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/202605\/tech-giants-sued-under-bipa-over-voiceprints-used-to-train-ai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">filed biometric privacy lawsuits<\/a> under Illinois\u2019 Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) against companies including Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, ElevenLabs, Adobe and Samsung Electronics.<\/p>\n<p>The plaintiffs allege the companies trained AI voice systems using voiceprints collected from online content without consent.<\/p>\n<p>It remains unclear how OpenAI plans to use Weights.gg\u2019s technology internally or whether any consumer-facing voice cloning products will emerge from the acquisition. Sources cited by The New York Times said OpenAI is unlikely to release a public-facing cloning platform similar to Replay.<\/p>\n<p>OpenAI has previously faced pressure over the risks posed by generative AI systems, including concerns from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/202511\/deepfake-crisis-gets-dire-prompting-new-investment-calls-for-regulation\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">civil rights groups and copyright holders<\/a> over misuse and unauthorized content generation.<\/p>\n<p>The deal nevertheless highlights growing competition around synthetic voice generation as AI firms balance product development against rising concerns over consent, copyright and biometric privacy.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tArticle Topics<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/tag\/acquisitions\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">acquisitions<\/a> \u00a0|\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/tag\/generative-ai\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">generative AI<\/a> \u00a0|\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/tag\/openai\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">OpenAI<\/a> \u00a0|\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/tag\/synthetic-voice\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">synthetic voice<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tLatest Biometrics News<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/202605\/why-blockchain-will-be-vital-for-the-next-generation-of-biometrics\" class=\"pic\" style=\"background-image:url(&#039;https:\/\/d1sr9z1pdl3mb7.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/12163219\/digital-identity-biometric-registration.jpg&#039;) ; background-size:cover ; position:relative\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0\t\t\t\t<\/a>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 18, 2026, 9:54 am EDT\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>By Thomas Berndorfer, CEO of Connecting Software In early 2026 the Australian banking sector was rocked by a massive scandal\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/202605\/researchers-develop-biometric-system-that-identifies-people-beyond-the-face\" class=\"pic\" style=\"background-image:url(&#039;https:\/\/d1sr9z1pdl3mb7.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/18144604\/long-distance-biometric-identification-1024x547.jpg&#039;) ; background-size:cover ; position:relative\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0\t\t\t\t<\/a>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 18, 2026, 9:39 am EDT\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>A multi-university research team has developed a biometric recognition system designed to identify people at long distances using not only\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/202605\/ocr-studio-expands-kyc-fraud-detection-for-ai-generated-identity-documents\" class=\"pic\" style=\"background-image:url(&#039;https:\/\/d1sr9z1pdl3mb7.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/17184152\/latvia-eid-passport-1024x476.png&#039;) ; background-size:cover ; position:relative\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0\t\t\t\t<\/a>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 17, 2026, 6:00 am EDT\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Fake documents made with the help of generative AI are becoming increasingly more convincing. Document analysis and data extraction software\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/202605\/id4africa-speakers-urge-legal-identity-inclusion-for-refugees-stateless-persons\" class=\"pic\" style=\"background-image:url(&#039;https:\/\/d1sr9z1pdl3mb7.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/16153209\/id4africa-2026-legal-identity-stats.jpg&#039;) ; background-size:cover ; position:relative\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0\t\t\t\t<\/a>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 16, 2026, 3:40 pm EDT\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>African governments must accelerate efforts to provide legal and digital identity to refugees and stateless populations, according to speakers at\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/202605\/biometrics-lawyer-dan-saeedi-talks-bipa-on-biometric-update-podcast\" class=\"pic\" style=\"background-image:url(&#039;https:\/\/d1sr9z1pdl3mb7.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/12092524\/face-iris-biometrics-1024x576.jpg&#039;) ; background-size:cover ; position:relative\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0\t\t\t\t<\/a>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 16, 2026, 2:01 pm EDT\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Dan Saeedi is a BIPA buster. The renowned Chicago attorney, CIPP\/US,a partner and team co-lead of the biometric privacy team\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biometricupdate.com\/202605\/world-bank-african-dpas-outline-formula-for-trusted-digital-identity-dpi\" class=\"pic\" style=\"background-image:url(&#039;https:\/\/d1sr9z1pdl3mb7.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/19111418\/world-bank-1024x570.png&#039;) ; background-size:cover ; position:relative\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0\t\t\t\t<\/a>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 16, 2026, 2:00 pm EDT\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Trust has moved steadily to the center of the conversation around digital public infrastructure and identity at ID4Africa, and the\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OpenAI has made a quietly acquired Weights.gg, a startup specializing in AI-powered voice cloning known for cloning celebrity&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-677769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}