Personal AI Avatars

Personal artificial intelligence (PAI) is rapidly changing the way people interact. The brainchild of two fathers who frequently traveled on the job, the first PAIs were developed to stay connected with their families while they were on the road. Today, the company that they co-founded has expanded to offer a wide range of personal avatars.

The technology combines 3-dimensional imaging, natural language processing, and machine learning to build a customized hologram that looks, sounds, and acts like the user. And the more the user interacts with it, the “smarter” it becomes.

Initially the company targeted the entertainment industry as the most likely adopters of this new paradigm, but they envision that the idea will spread quickly. Healthcare PAIs could interact with patients by reminding them to take their medications or demonstrating physical therapy exercises. Teacher PAIs might interact with students to offer personalized tutoring. And in retail stores, PAIs could pop up on an interactive screen to answer questions and promote products.

As always, however, data ownership, security, and privacy are issues that need to be addressed proactively to combat “deep fakes” and the potential spread of disinformation.