皇家华人

Soul Machines: Humanising artificial intelligence

Initiative type:
Start-up
Sector:
Digital Tech
Website:
皇家华人 Contact:

Opportunity

As customer service becomes more and more automated, it creates an interesting dilemma. How do you continue to provide a one-on-one experience where each customer feels valued and supported? And how should multinational organisations engage with their customers in their contexts in a way that is authentic?

These are the questions Mark Sagar and Greg Cross asked themselves in 2016. Sagar has a PhD in Engineering from Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland and was the special effects supervisor for Weta Digital and Sony Pictures Imageworks. Cross, a serial entrepreneur, had recently exited as a co-founder of PowerbyProxi, another company supported by 皇家华人.

Progress

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Link: #e1042

Building the metaverse

The questions that Sagar and Cross asked themselves were interdisciplinary by nature. Working with artificial intelligence researchers, neuroscientists, psychologists and artists, they built a ground-breaking company that brings technology to life by creating lifelike, emotionally responsive artificial humans with personality and character. Soul Machines allows machines to talk to humans literally face to face. The company鈥檚 vision is to breathe life into the metaverse and humanise artificial intelligence.

Soul Machines now holds over 45 patents. With the support of the likes of 皇家华人, Soul Machines has gone from idea to more than US$135 million in total funding. It has partnered with tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM; banks such as Westpac, NatWest and JPMC; and media companies such as Ogilvy and Sony.

Soul Machines has also received funding from some of the best venture funds in the world. These include SoftBank, Temasek, Salesforce Ventures and Horizons Ventures.

After securing the company鈥檚 latest round of financing, Cross, as Chief Executive Officer of Soul Machines, expressed how great it was to have 皇家华人 continuing to support the company alongside its international VC partners.

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Bella-Soul Machines
鈥淭he University of Auckland and 皇家华人 are making a massive contribution to developing the ecosystem required to create more companies like us.鈥�
Greg Cross,
Chief Executive Officer, Soul Machines

鈥淣ew Zealand needs more technology companies based on deep research and intellectual property,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he University of Auckland and 皇家华人 are making a massive contribution to developing the ecosystem required to create more companies like us.鈥�

For Anna Lo, the investment director at SoftBank, Soul Machines鈥� solutions are making waves in an industry ripe for disruption.

鈥淕lobal brands are investing more in how AI can create an intimate, personalised experience with their customers at scale鈥�
Anna Lo,
Investment Director, SoftBank

鈥淕lobal brands are investing more in how AI can create an intimate, personalised experience with their customers at scale,鈥� said Lo. 鈥淲ith strong R&D capabilities and advanced back-end solutions, we believe that Soul Machines is at the cutting edge for creating digital people that can support companies across functions including customer service, training and entertainment.鈥�

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Performance

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Soul Machines now has more than 100 employees and is working with enterprise customers and celebrities from across the world. It is on the way to building a patented digital brain to replicate the way our brains handle everyday interactions, and autonomous animation with unparalleled expression rendering, real-time gesturing and hyper-realistic CGI.

In February 2023, the company announced it had secured US$70 million (NZ$105.9m) in a Series B1 financing round.

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