Soul Machines: Humanising artificial intelligence

Initiative type:
Start-up
Sector:
Digital Tech
Website:
UniServices 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 UniServices.

Progress

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Link: https://uniservices.co.nz#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’s 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 UniServices, 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’s latest round of financing, Cross, as Chief Executive Officer of Soul Machines, expressed how great it was to have UniServices continuing to support the company alongside its international VC partners.

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Bella-Soul Machines
“The University of Auckland and UniServices are making a massive contribution to developing the ecosystem required to create more companies like us.”
Greg Cross,
Chief Executive Officer, Soul Machines

“New Zealand needs more technology companies based on deep research and intellectual property,” he said. “The University of Auckland and UniServices are making a massive contribution to developing the ecosystem required to create more companies like us.”

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

“Global brands are investing more in how AI can create an intimate, personalised experience with their customers at scale”
Anna Lo,
Investment Director, SoftBank

“Global brands are investing more in how AI can create an intimate, personalised experience with their customers at scale,” said Lo. “With 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.”

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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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