Artificial intelligence has spawned holographic avatars whose appearance, mannerisms, and speech patterns are nearly indistinguishable from the person the avatar is modeled after. Could this intriguing technology be made into an indispensable tool for conducting business?
That question was posed to a roomful of University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School students last week. The query was initially posed by Russell Geyser, the CEO of technology firm 2wai, with a follow-up challenge coming from Miami Herbert Director of Entrepreneurial Initiatives, Associate Professor of Professional Practice Susan Amat.
Students who accepted the avatar gauntlet will turn in proposals this week, with the most innovative ideas to be brought to life by 2wai (pronounced “two way”), maker of the world’s first interactive 3-D holographic avatars for smartphones.
About 40 Miami Herbert students gathered to hear Geyser, who spoke in tandem with activist and Disney actor Calum Worthy. Ironically, last year Worthy found himself picketing in Hollywood alongside striking screenwriters trying to ensure that their jobs wouldn’t eventually be imperiled by artificial intelligence writing programs.
Worthy and Geyser were introduced by Miami Herbert Dean Paul A. Pavlou, a staunch backer of artificial intelligence who noted that Geyser’s daughter, Alexa, attends the business school.
“We’ve been seeing holographic imaging for a while. In fact, Calum and I worked on a show that has a holographic image,” said Geyser, who was a successful real estate investor before becoming a producer of 25 Hollywood movies. In 2020, he was a member of a partnership that purchased a 261,000-square-foot office campus in Hollywood, Calif., for $186 million.
“The reason we wanted to come speak today is, we want to know what resonates with you,” said Geyser, who’d previously spoken to many of Amat’s entrepreneurship students, and was eager to pick the brains of Miami Herbert students pursuing other majors. “We’ve met with the Entrepreneurship group, but the wider business group here is really valuable to us.
“We’re thinking of all the different ways you can use avatars and one of the things that we were just able to get out of the entrepreneurship program, were a few more ways that we hadn’t even considered. So, we’re here to learn from you guys as much as we’re here to teach you.”
Geyser’s remarks were broken up by a video of Worthy speaking to his avatar, something 2wai can create of anyone following a three-minute video and an audio recording of their voice. After that, artificial intelligence brings your facsimile eerily to life, as demonstrated by an avatar of retired NFL quarterback Tom Brady talking about his hurricane relief efforts in English, then seamlessly segueing into Spanish and German, among other languages.
Toward the end of the hologram avatar session, Miami Herbert students were allotted about 10 minutes to lob questions at Geyser and Worthy. “E-commerce integration is growing exponentially, so I was thinking that maybe you could partner with online stores?” observed Sarah Frey, a senior majoring in entrepreneurship. “Because they don’t have a salesperson that sells you an article of clothing, or a product.”
“It’s like QVC meets TikTok,” Geyser responded. “I think where you’re going is exactly right!”
After the Q&A, Geyser doubled down on his pitch to Miami Herbert’s student body.
“If we have time remaining, is it worth just asking people to sort of gather amongst themselves and invent something? Because my original thought -- ”
“I have something much better,” Professor Amat interjected. “For all of my students, you have a challenge: By your next class with me, next week, whoever submits the most original and unique new opportunity for 2wai, I will come up with a special prize!”
“Can I add to that?” Geyser asked. “If you come up with an idea that we don’t have, that we like, we’ll finance it. We’re here to collaborate with you guys in a way that, if you guys can bring value to this relationship, we’ll fund it!”
