PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Alexis Conneau

Alexis Conneau is a machine-learning researcher whose work spans multilingual language models and speech systems. He graduated in mathematics from École Polytechnique in 2015, received an EMNLP Outstanding Paper Award in 2017, and co-authored the conference’s Best Paper in 2018. At Facebook AI, he completed a PhD at FAIR Paris in 2019 and co-authored XLM-R, a model trained on 100 languages. At Google, he co-authored XLS-R, a cross-lingual speech model presented at Interspeech in 2022; at OpenAI, he started the project behind ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode. He launched WaveForms AI in December 2024 to train audio language models, and he is part of Meta Superintelligence Labs after Meta acquired the company in August 2025.

Now at
Meta
Works
55
Citations
19,985
h-index
36
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2015

    Mathematics at École Polytechnique

    He graduates in mathematics from École Polytechnique in 2015.

  2. 2017

    An EMNLP Outstanding Paper

    He receives an Outstanding Paper Award at EMNLP in 2017.

  3. 2018

    An EMNLP Best Paper

    He co-authors EMNLP’s Best Paper in 2018.

  4. 2019

    A FAIR Paris PhD and XLM-R

    He completes his PhD at FAIR Paris in 2019 and works as a research scientist at Facebook AI. He co-authors XLM-R, a model trained on 100 languages that outperforms multilingual BERT on cross-lingual benchmarks.

  5. 2022

    Cross-lingual speech at Google

    At Google, he co-authors XLS-R, a self-supervised model for cross-lingual speech representation presented at Interspeech in 2022.

  6. By 2024

    Advanced Voice Mode at OpenAI

    At OpenAI, he starts the project behind ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode after similar work at Meta.

  7. December 2024

    Launching WaveForms AI

    In December 2024, he launches WaveForms AI, an audio LLM company training its own foundation models.

  8. As of October 2026

    Meta Superintelligence Labs

    Meta acquires WaveForms AI in August 2025, and its co-founders Alexis Conneau and Coralie Lemaitre join Meta. In September 2026, he says the WaveForms team is part of Meta Superintelligence Labs and will show some of its work at Meta Connect.

Career

  1. Since 2025MetaResearch scientist
  2. 2024–2025WaveForms AICo-founder
  3. 2023–2024OpenAI
  4. 2022Google

Education

  1. 2019MetaPhD
  2. 2015École PolytechniqueMathematics degree

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. Of 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google, 446 work there nowIncludes Alexis Conneau. Our estimates of where the 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google and Google DeepMind work now: 446 at Google and 452 across 278 other organizations.
  2. 22 of 133 people shaping AI with a former OpenAI role now work at AnthropicIncludes Alexis Conneau. Our estimates of where OpenAI recruits came from and where 133 people with former OpenAI roles work now, including the companies and labs they founded.
  3. Google alumni have founded or led 133 other organizations, more than any other AI labIncludes Alexis Conneau. We estimate that alumni of 17 major AI labs went on to found or lead 350 other organizations, including 226 they founded, and we trace 472 career moves directly between 23 labs since 2010.
  4. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Alexis Conneau. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Alexis Conneau yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. The Stanford Natural Language Processing Group nlp.stanford.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. [1911.02116] Unsupervised Cross-lingual Representation Learning at Scale arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Google at Interspeech 2022 research.google. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. The creator of ChatGPT’s voice wants to build the tech from ‘Her,’ minus the dystopia | TechCrunch techcrunch.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Meta acquires AI audio startup WaveForms | TechCrunch techcrunch.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Meta acquired WaveForms for its voice research; Conneau’s team joined MSL | RuntimeWire runtimewire.com. Checked 21 October 2026.