How did David Beckham speak 9 languages and demonstrate that AI can improve video performance by 1,200%

Today, I'd like to talk about the beauty of AI or artificial intelligence, and the ability to use images that some people are branding as deep fakes, but other companies are using to great effect to communicate around the world at low costs, but with high quality, including famous stars like David Beckham. I got to think about this, because I did a shoot with Marcus Ahmad here in Bristol. When we got there, there was this moment where everyone was worried whether they should be wearing their masks or not. One of the issues was that had it been just he and I, we would perhaps get over that, but if we were to do an event or a shoot with multiple people, then we wouldn't be able to do that, because with social distancing, it would have just been impossible to all be in the studio together. There's an issue that's been created by COVID, which I think is being addressed by AI. I've spent some time looking to try and solve some problems for myself, which are around, what if I want to show the face of products and clients, but I can't actually send a film crew? I'm a big fan of video, and I'm a big fan of having people, but we've all used up our archive photography. We're all getting out slowly but surely, but with social distancing, it's becoming very difficult to have any group shots or any press briefings. In my research, I came across WPP, the multinational agency originally founded by Sir Martin Sorrell. The solution that they've been using is a London company called Synthesia, which was founded in 2017 by researchers and entrepreneurs out of UCL, Stanford, and Cambridge. At WPP, they've created some corporate training videos for their tens of thousands of employees worldwide. Instead of having presenters speaking individual languages, they've gone to Synthesia and created an AI-based presenter. What's interesting about this is that it's not just AI in terms of a CGI. It's not computer graphics; it's just pure animation. It makes use of pictures of individuals, of real people's faces that are uploaded to the Synthesia platform, and those then are being animated. I had a look myself, and I found that you can upload a picture of the person that you'd like to be the spokesperson, you upload the text, and the platform then will make the face into an AI avatar. The quality of the avatar is amazing, both in terms of the facial expressions and also in the lip synchronization. It's not 100% accurate, but it's very close. Considering that most people will be listening to the audio and are less attentive to the lip synching than they are to the quality of the audio, it's creating an amazing opportunity to have people, in effect, made into avatars and then to speak. That in itself may not sound so exciting, but with this program, you can actually have the avatar speaking up to 34 languages. You can have one person or multiple people say the same script, but the lip movement and the facial expressions change according to the language that's being spoken. This seems to be pretty amazing. The WPP Chief Technology Officer, Stephan Pretorius, who was covered in WIRED recently said, "With Synthesia, we can have avatars that are diverse and speak your name and your agency and in your language, and the whole thing can cost $100,000." They cover English, Spanish, and Mandarin in their internal training program, and they aim to send out 20 five-minute modules to 50,000 employees for what was less than the price of a movie ticket, less than $2 per head. Having seen the videos on the website, I can tell you that if you were to watch those, you wouldn't feel as though you were watching some motionless avatar. It really looks as though someone is speaking to you. It's partly about the technologym but it's also about the practicality of it, that if we are now going to try and create videos in the way that I would create before, for example, a video of a CFO, I can't take the whole film crew with me, because due to social distancing, people can't necessarily travel. They may not all be allowed to be in the same room, and then that spokesperson may need to wear a mask. So, there's a practical issue where the technology is coming to the fore, because of the limitations on our freedom to interact with each other caused by COVID. As we know, there are companies, in China, for instance, where you are able to try on lipstick using an avatar. You paint the lipstick on the avatar, and you can choose the different kinds of skin color, eye color, hair color, and so on. Really, it's becoming this montage where we can go in and create people that look like they're real, and with Synthesia, you're able to animate that. Victor Riparbelli, who's the CEO and co-founder of Synthesia, says, "We're saying let's remove the camera from the equation." Now, I have a lot of affection for and a lot of friends who are photographers, and my intention is not to try and remove the camera people from this world, but there are many occasions now where communications programs can't take place, simply because people with cameras are not allowed to be next to the talent. This is a opportunity, then, for us to continue to communicate and to circumnavigate the limitations being imposed on us all. Last year, David Beckham appeared on a public service announcement talking about malaria. David Beckham, I think, is not renowned for his linguistic ability, but in the video, he was speaking nine languages, including Hindi, Arabic, and Kinyarwanda (the language of the people in Rwanda). Millions of people were then able to understand it, the same people who otherwise would have needed subtitles or a voiceover. Narrated video presentations can also be from slide decks. I thought this is very interesting, because I've been experimenting with Loom, which can film a copy of your presentation or your screen, and also the camera attached to your computer or your external camera. Basically, you can speak, present, and narrate a PowerPoint or a screen. With Synthesia, you can do the same thing. You can have your avatar embedded into, for example, an infographic, a slide presentation, or an informercial that you're giving. It's great for training. A lady from Malaria No More said that the Synthesia exceeded their expectations, because they were able to harness the power of the immersive AI video to break new ground and reach millions more people globally, because of the ability to do it linguistically. Interestingly, they're also working with Reuters to create an automated presenter-led video report. In this case, it's using match data to autogenerate a news bulletin, which autocreates the text for the AI-created avatar. In other words, from end to end, once the news has come in from the pitch, then it's all AI. Now, why bother? Because viewers record and retain 95% of a video message compared to 10% when reading text. This is the result of a survey I've done. That's why the safety announcements on the plane are videos and not a book. People remember 95% of a video's message. Synthesia did a test with platform called Realeyes, hich uses computer vision to tr ck viewers' attention and emo ion when they're watching vide s. This, for me, was the inte esting part, because do a lot of work across the wor d in different languages with m offices of EastWest Public Relations in Singapore, Ch na, India, and the UK. They fo nd that people connect wi h the AI-dubbed content mo e in their own language t an they did if it was dubbed. In other words, using AI, using n avatar speaking in a local la guage got a better recall rat than a real person with a dub ed over voice. According o Synthesia, there was a 175% increase. It nearly doubles th impact. They also went on to say that the difference was even more amongst young and old, that the young people had absolutely no illusions at all about what they're watching. They were convinced almost entirely by the avatars, whereas the older people were a little bit mor cynical. Synthesia's research shows that video with AI con ent can increase engagement p to 1,200%, which is pretty m ssive. And I guess if you thin about David Beckham speaking in the language of the people of R anda, that's a pretty asto ishing event. No wonder peop e found that memorable. Now, not everyone wants to make animated movies all the time. I came across a company called Rosebud, which makes glossy images that are used in e-commerce. You can pick from either uploading your own photograph or you can use one of their photos. There's some 25,000 modeling photos of people that never existed. It's pretty amazing, 25,000 unique faces. You can also swap different elements, and what makes is better is that the changes are seamless. You can change the hair, and it changes the light on the forehead. If you change the eyes, it changes the position of the nose, and so on. They've recently launched a service that enables you to put clothes on to the mannequin. One opportunity, then, is that if you are a young designer, maybe designing clothes yourself on your computer, you can use their mannequin service to literally dress the virtual mannequin with your outfits. Imagine the impact for product launches and production. You would then only make product to order. You wouldn't have any stock. You'd just be designing, not having any real models come into a studio to try things on. And if you got people to buy them, then you could make them. That's an amazing reduction in manufacturing lead times. And also from an environmental point of view, it means we're not making things that people don't need it. I have to say, these are amazing-looking mannequins. We've used one of the Rosebud images for our EastWest Public Relations virtual assistant whom we call Val and, to be honest, you couldn't tell the difference. They have a self-service app with no photoshoot needed; you an just drag and drop the mages, and it's $19.95 a month. ou can only imagine how much oney you'd save from photos oots. With virtual fashion m dels with full faces and full b dy poses, you can have a c mpaign at $250. In Singapore, y u wouldn't get a crew out for t at amount of money. They also h ve what they call a white g ove service for $1,000 for a c mpaign, and it only takes a w ek to do a turnaround, where y u can also ask them to help y u with your demographic t rgeting. It's pretty amazing w en you look at what's created, onsidering most people are watch ng product launches, PR events and product displays online an maybe on their phones. These AI videos by Synthesia and Rosebud really probably serve your purpose. Lisha Li, the CEO of Rosebud, says that the company can help small brands with limited resources produce more powerful portfolios of images, and I think that's absolutely true. You can have algorithms now to help you make your portfolio instead of the expense and the delay of models. There's a company called CAA that signed Lil Miquela for a campaign. Lil Miquela is actually an AI-created avator who is now an Instagram influencer with 2 million followers, so I think you get the idea. AI is here, it's very powerful, and it's something that we can all use for good.