The avatar was developed during a visit to Synthesia's new New York office in September, after the startup — founded in the U.K. and valued at $4 billion earlier this year — offered to create a digital twin of the reporter. Davis's avatar is trained on her article about why venture-backed startups commit more fraud than non-VC-backed startups, and it will only answer questions about that story, such as why she wrote it and what the underlying research paper found.
To build the avatars, Davis entered a mini film studio inside Synthesia's office, where numerous photos were taken and a two-minute recording of her voice was captured. She consented to the likenesses being made. The company produced four versions: a personal avatar that reads whatever script it is given, and two interactive avatars that can talk and respond, each with and without glasses.
Synthesia, which counts D-ID, HeyGen and Colossyan among rivals, lets enterprises build interactive training videos with AI avatars and last year said it had crossed $100 million in annual recurring revenue. It recently launched a product called Roleplay Sessions that lets employees practice pitches or conversations with an interactive AI avatar that responds and scores their performance.
The company's head of corporate affairs, Alexandru Voica, already uses an interactive avatar of himself to answer common press questions about what Synthesia does and how it works. Davis wrote that she had previously been indifferent toward avatars but considered them "inevitably part of everyday online life," noting people on Instagram are creating likenesses to help make social content. This is the first time Synthesia has made an avatar for anyone outside Voica.