Synthesia has unveiled a new range of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated digital avatars can represent human emotions based on text instructions.
The London-based company has introduced its “Expressive Avatars” to combine real emotions in the virtual world and give users the opportunity to create professional-quality videos without cameras and microphones.
The Nvidia-sponsored company Synthesia is said to have half of the Fortune 100 companies on its customer list and its services used by more than 55,000 companies in total. The company specializes in creating digital avatars for corporate presentations and training purposes.
Actors read scripts in front of a green screen to train the AI system. A demonstration shows how basic information is fed into the program.
The three lines of text read: “I am happy. I’m sad. I’m frustrated.” The AI-generated persona in the video then responded by reading the relevant text with the appropriate tone and emotion.
Since its founding in 2017, Synthesia has been so successful that it reached a valuation of around $1 billion last year after a $90 million funding round. The rapid success has placed the company on a “unicorn” platform alongside other UK companies such as Accel, FirstMark Capital, GV, Kleiner Perkins and MMC.
The world’s first expressive AI avatars are (finally) here 💥
They frown, smile, furrow their eyebrows, and more – all automatically. And you can be the first to try them. 🤖
Join us on April 25th to learn more about this groundbreaking technology and get early access!… pic.twitter.com/MTZ9J184aV
— Synthesia 🎥 (@synthesiaIO) April 9, 2024
Synthesia enacts AI security measures
Synthesia has allayed concerns about disinformation and “deepfakes” by introducing a moderation system for all content it generates. To create synthetic avatars, publishers must register as enterprise customers.
Ahead of this year’s crucial national elections, it has also taken other measures to address the threat of malicious actors seeking to interfere in the democratic process, including becoming a member of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity.
The Creators Collective is an umbrella group of AI companies working together to incorporate watermarks and agreed content details into AI-generated works to responsibly communicate to viewers that what they are seeing was created by AI.
Photo credit: Ideogram