Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovations are being rolled out faster than most of us can keep up. Just two years ago, ChatGPT made its official debut; fast forward to today, AI applications have evolved beyond the generative scope to more business functions, including brand strategy and customer relations.
In this new era of adoption, we’re seeing the integration of more advanced AI-powered technologies which are being designed as AI-driven avatars or digital twins.
Unlike the static logos or scripted chatbots that have traditionally been used in branding or providing customer support, digital twins such as the ones pioneered by the Antix AI-powered SaaS platform have the capability to bring one’s presence to life within the digital space. This is because of their ability to understand and respond to other digital interactions in a personalized way that almost feels human.
The evolution of brand-customer interactions
Before we can jump into the details on AI-driven avatars and digital twins, let’s take a step back into the evolution of brand strategy and customer relations. This business function has evolved significantly over the years, from the early days of human representatives to chatbots, social media platforms and now digital twins.
While human representatives were and are still capable of providing a more personalized service, this approach is limited in terms of availability and scalability. On the other hand, chatbots have failed to improve from their rigid nature, with most still frustrating customers with scripted and impersonal interactions.
These shortcomings are part of the reason why AI-driven avatars are popping up as the next big thing in brand awareness and quality customer support; projections by GrandView Research estimate that the global digital avatar market will eclipse $270 billion by 2030.
What are AI-driven avatars and digital twins?
Simply put, AI-driven avatars are virtual representations of real-life personas within the digital realm. What makes them standout is their ability to engage in dynamic interactions at an intelligent level compared to earlier iterations of AI innovations. So, how do they work and what makes them superior to chatbots or other customer support tools?
At the core, AI-driven avatars are powered by advanced AI models which are tailored to incorporate sentiment analysis, natural language processing (NLP) and behavioral adaptation. These technical fundamentals enable the AI avatars to understand emotions, respond with contextual awareness and create more human-like digital interactions.
Antix’s digital twins take this concept a step further; this AI-powered SaaS platform supports the creation of hyper-realistic and intelligent digital human avatars. Notably, the digital humans offered by Antix are designed as unique Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), this means that they evolve alongside the owner and can be repaired or enhanced through their lifetime.
But more importantly, Antix’s digital twins leverage advanced machine learning and NLP to introduce hyper-realistic interactions for digital users across the board. For example, an internet user can use Antix’s digital humans to create a high detail profile with specific customizations on personalized features such as emotions, style, voice and appearance.
It does not end there, digital humans or twins can also be used by businesses, especially those looking to enhance their brand awareness in the digital age or provide a more personalized customer service to their target market.
The role of digital humans in brand awareness
There are quite a number of roles that digital humans can play in improving companies’ brand strategy. One of them is by becoming the face of a brand in the digital space and acting as the representative on various platforms, including social media and virtual worlds. But how exactly will they enhance brand awareness, you may ask?
Digital humans can be used to run virtual campaigns, events or even engage with a potential audience with a touch of human-like personalization. In addition to this, entities and digital influencers also have the flexibility of using digital humans to cut their brand awareness production costs; instead of shooting commercials every now and then, this role can be tasked to digital humans given their ability to automatically generate content as per the instructions.
It is also worth mentioning that as we enter into the era of virtual worlds or the metaverse, most brands will have no option but to establish their presence in such ecosystems. Digital humans will play a major role in this paradigm shift.
Customer service with AI-powered digital humans
This is another important business facet that will benefit from the advent of digital humans or digital twins. For starters, digital humans have the ability to process real-time requests with no delays; this will improve the response time for most businesses while at the same time reducing the workload or costs associated with human labour.
What’s even more impressive is the fact that AI-powered digital humans are now equipped to better understand emotions and react to queries in a personalized manner. This will go a long way in customer retention, also bearing in mind that digital humans are likely to maintain composure unlike humans who tend to tire in such lines of work.
The era of digital twins is now
The world is fast changing from what we knew it, gone are the days when human interactions were the order of the day. We’re now living in an era where digital interactions reign supreme, with close to 5.2 billion social media users.
That being the case, it is only a matter of time before the world fully embraces the concept of living virtually. This transition will be marked by the integration of AI into virtual avatars which have existed for some time but lacked personalized capabilities to make them human-like. With the latest advancements on digital humans, we’re definitely in for interesting times ahead!
Featured image credit: Christopher Burns/Unsplash
