Nvidia-backed startup Synthesia unveils AI avatars that can convey human emotions

Synthesia, supported by Nvidia, has developed AI-generated digital avatars capable of expressing human emotions through text input.

The company claims that its “Expressive Avatars” can blur the distinction between the virtual world and actual characters. It seeks to eliminate cameras, microphones, performers, lengthy editing, and other expenses from professional video production. Synthesia has a studio in London where actors read texts in front of a green screen to train the system.

In one example, the company displayed three lines of text being entered into its platform: “I am glad. I’m sad. I am frustrated” — to which the video’s AI-generated actor responded by reading the words in the tone of the relevant emotion.

More than 55,000 firms, including half of the Fortune 100, utilize Synthesia’s technology to create digital avatars for corporate presentations and training films, the company says.

Synthesia, founded in 2017, raised $90 million from investors last year at a valuation of approximately $1 billion, making it one of Britain’s more recent AI “unicorn” startups. Accel, Kleiner Perkins, GV, FirstMark Capital, and MMC are all shareholders.

Concerns about how its films could be used to produce fake news content were addressed by the firm, which stated that publishers must register as enterprise customers in order to develop synthetic avatars. Moderators vet content created using its technologies.

Synthesia does not openly reveal pricing for enterprise customers.

The company also requires all new clients to go through a detailed “Know Your Customer” process similar to what is used in the banking industry, which helps prevent unscrupulous actors from generating bogus corporate profiles and spreading misinformation.

Synthesia stated that it is already prepared for the future worldwide elections and has installed a number of restrictions to ensure that its platform is not abused by hostile actors attempting to alter the results of various ballots.

The company is also a member of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, an organization of AI companies dedicated to implementing content credentials and digital “watermarking” of AI-generated content to ensure viewers understand that what they are viewing is created by artificial intelligence rather than a human.