Chicago, IL (NEWS WIRE) — Silhouette, an early stage startup, is betting that remote business interactions are here to stay. Their software platform is enabling programmable physical appearance for the digital world, which, they say, allows for the most effective physical appearance to be chosen for the task at hand.
What does "programmable physical appearance" mean? We asked Adam Tilton, Co-founder and CEO to break that down for us. "Our software platform allows for physical appearance and voice to be altered in real-time. For example, any Progressive customer service representative could look and sound like Flo on a video call. The value for a business is that they can have a consistent appearance across all customer interactions. As business moves to the internet and more-and-more interactions take place over video, appearance has become a critical part of how a customer experiences a brand."
The ability to make a customer service representative look and sound like Flo is what makes Silhouette unique. Adam's Co-founder and Silhouette's CTO Madeu Pname is an expert in artificial intelligence and machine learning. He was previously the CTO of Loon (an Alphabet company) that was driving balloons around the stratosphere to beam internet to folks all over the world. "We can use videos and images of a brand's icon or representative to create a synthetic personality, or a model", said Madeu. "We can do something similar with the person who wants to 'drive' that model, and transform between the two. The challenging part has been enabling this to work in real-time."
I was able to meet Adam and Madeu and use their software to create my own Silhouette, and it was truly an out-of-body experience. The first step was a brief calibration where I looked into a laptop camera and read a short set of phrases. This part was about capturing the unique elements of my face and voice. Then, I was able to select a Silhouette — a different physical appearance and voice — to transform into. Then, on the other side of a video call, I looked and sounded like a completely different person.
It's was also a bit scary. Technology like this could be used for any number of nefarious activities, and moves the world towards a place where you can't believe the things you see. The company believes that the benefits outweigh the risks. "Giving someone control over how they are seen by the world is giving them a super power", said Adam. "And the goal isn't to trick people into believing a falsehood — Silhouette will add visual cues to help customers know they are talking to a synthetic personality".
Silhouette is still early-stage, having raised minimal funds and focused mostly on building the enabling technology. Although, according to Adam, they have a few initial pilot customers but wouldn't share any details. What's next for the company is to continue to build our the software and grow the number of customers and applications they can service. This is one I look forward to following.
It's a subscription based model where every user needs to have a license to control a Silhouette.
Silhouette is initially target brands that have brand icons or ambassadors.