Genvid’s Exploration of AI Characters: An Overview
Genvid Holdings, founded in 2016, has steadily pursued advancements in interactive and streaming entertainment over the past several years. A core aspect of the company’s innovations appears to be a sustained interest in artificial intelligence (AI) characters. While specifics of their internal timeline and projects may be uncertain, public-facing communications highlight an ongoing engagement with this technology.
In December 2020, Genvid unveiled Rival Peak in partnership with Pipeworks Studio – billed as a “massive game-like reality show” involving 12 AI contestants that audiences could influence through interactive live-streams. Spanning over 3 months on Facebook Watch, this implementation of what Genvid terms a “Massively Interactive Live Event” (MILE) provided early hands-on experience for the company in developing complex AI personas.
CEO Jacob Navrok stated in a 2021 interview that the AI characters aimed for emotional depth – enabled through machine learning models assessing audience input to shape distinctive personality traits over time. While Rival Peak demonstrated initial successes, Navrok also cited limitations in sustaining longer-term audience investment solely through AI contestants over months of streaming.
Nonetheless, Genvid has clearly continued pursuing AI character technology. Navrok himself asserted publicly in 2023 that “all of [Genvid’s] upcoming projects would be using AI characters”. The company’s Chief Creative Officer has also taken part in events like the AI-focused Simulations Summit. While the extent of current implementations may vary, Genvid appears invested in expanding the capability set of AI-driven personas.
Most recently, speculation arose over potential AI contributions to writing the Silent Hill series’ latest interactive entry Ascension. While strongly denied by Navrok, he notably only rejected AI authorship for the “100,000+ words” of scripted dialogue. This seemingly leaves room for narrower AI applications related to characters that Genvid has provably researched. Exact details remain ambiguous.
In closing, Genvid has clearly prized AI character technology as a crucial area of innovation since their earliest interactive experiments. Public messaging indicates consistent progress toward integrating virtual personas powered by machine learning into interactive narratives and streaming entertainment. Their future roadmap promises to further reveal the strengths and limits of emergent character AI across a spectrum of immersive digital experiences.