Virtual Beings Roundup

Happy Tuesday, Cyborgs.

Last week’s Virtual Beings Salon in Venice Beach was soo out there and fun! We loved every minute of it. Thank you to our brilliant speakers Melanie Plaza (AE Studio) Sally Slade (Genies) Mehrdad Jahangiri (Butterflies AI) Nina Hawkins Brenda Chen Isaiah Chavous (Noctal) Emmie Chang (Citron labs) Sam Hosovsky (uCat) Jean-Daniel LeRoy (Playbook)!

Look at these stunner shots of you all!! 😻 

Feedback Requested 💙

We’re curious to hear your thoughts so far - and also, what future event topics excite you! Would you be willing to take 30sec and fill out the below feedback form so we can continue to go above and beyond? 🚀

Virtual Beings Startups - Watchlist 👀

Let’s keep the Virtual Beings fun going….here are 10 fascinating Virtual Beings startups to watch in our community:

1. Genies The avatar technology company (Sally Slade, Allison Sturges)

2. HourOne Create, manage, and streamline cinematic Gen-AI avatar videos with text-to-video generator (Natalie Monbiot)

3. uCat VR avatars controlled by brain implants for paralysis (Sam Hosovsky)

4. Butterflies AI The first digital and social playground where humans and AI can coexist (Micah Gantman, Mehrdad Jahangiri)

5. Citron labs AI short form videos starring your personal avatar (Emmie Chang)

6. Wave The Show Must Go Beyond (Adam Arrigo, Jeremy Welt)

7. IMVU Millions of users customize their avatars and connect with each other

8. Jenn AI The new paradigm of customer service (Ashley Miyasaki, Alexander Whedon)

9. HeyGen Effortlessly produce studio-quality videos with AI-generated avatars and voices. (Devan Sood)

10. Soul Machines Personalized AI Assistants

Virtual Beings Artists - Watchlist 👀

Here are some insanely talented artists experimenting with Virtual Beings & avatars:

1. Behnaz Farahi

2. Claire Silver

3. Ninocence

4. Gavuitar

5. Alex Box

6. Sougwen Chen

7. Viktoria Modesta

8. Allseeingseneca

9. Damara Ingles

10. Craves

OPENHOME GRANT 🚀

We’re excited to share some news from OpenHome, a fast-growing startup that we LOVE in the A&M ecosystem. OpenHome is the first LLM-driven smart speaker, enabling AI interaction across all devices. The Voice SDK enables any device to become "smart," unlocking the full potential of LLMs and the ability to speak to any device conversationally + modularization and scalability, solving many of the most advanced challenges in voice AI. Imagine a future where you can have natural, seamless conversations with any device, making technology more accessible and intuitive for everyone.

Openhome just opened their developer grant program: an opportunity to receive up to $50,000 and build alongside a lively community of developers, working on AI-powered voice projects and thinking about the implications of voice-first AI applications.

UPCOMING EVENTS 😍

We’re taking the summer to regroup on IRL events and come in hot with monthly salons in both LA and NY starting in September! We’ll send save the dates soon - stay tuned for Virtual Beings part 2 September 10 in NY, and our next salon in Venice Beach week September 25th. In the meantime, we’ll be sending weekly newsletters with top Artist and the Machine industry highlights & community spotlights!

Get in touch —> Email, Twitter, Linkedin

xx Dani Van de Sande