Artem Rodichev is the Founder and CEO of Ex-human, an organization targeted on constructing empathetic AI characters for participating conversations. Earlier than founding Ex-human, Artem was the Head of AI at Replika from 2017 to 2021, the place he led the event one of the vital fashionable English-speaking chatbots, rising its consumer base to 10 million within the U.S.
You spent a number of years as Head of AI at Replika, constructing one of the vital fashionable conversational AIs. What impressed you to go away and located Ex-human, and the way did your expertise at Replika affect your imaginative and prescient for Ex-human?
Throughout my time at Replika, I had the chance to assist form a conversational AI that resonated with tens of millions of customers, which gave me deep perception into how individuals join with know-how on an emotional degree. As rewarding because it was, I at all times felt there was extra potential for AI past what we had been constructing. I noticed a possibility to develop AI’s potential throughout a number of sectors and use circumstances.
At Replika, the main target was totally on making a companion AI, however I started to check how conversational AI could possibly be built-in into various purposes, providing personalised, emotionally clever interactions for a big selection of use circumstances — from leisure to enterprise. That realization sparked the concept for Ex-Human, the place we purpose to develop AI know-how that not solely offers companionship but in addition powers modern experiences for companies and shoppers alike.
Ex-Human was born from the will to push the boundaries of AI even additional, making it extra adaptive, participating, and able to reworking how individuals work together with digital characters throughout numerous industries.
Ex-human makes use of AI avatars to interact tens of millions of customers. Are you able to clarify how your AI avatars are designed to be empathetic and responsive?
We’ve spent quite a lot of time refining how our AI characters work together with customers, guaranteeing that they’re not simply reactive however really attentive to the emotional tone of the dialog. A technique we do that is by coaching our fashions on tens of millions of open-domain conversations, permitting them to learn to have interaction in a means that feels pure and emotionally conscious.
The objective is to make customers really feel understood and heard. These characters aren’t simply programmed to offer solutions; they’re designed to foster genuine interactions. They choose up on delicate emotional cues and reply in ways in which really feel human-like and comforting. That’s why our customers spend important time interacting with them.
Past simply textual content, our avatars are able to multi-modal interactions. They will reply with voice, ship contextual photographs, and even video, which provides a layer of richness and depth to the conversations. This number of interplay types helps customers really feel extra immersed within the expertise and allows them to construct full tales with the AI characters. On the finish of the day, we purpose to create AI that goes past normal interactions, providing customers a deeply participating, emotionally clever expertise that retains them returning.
How does the info collected out of your B2C platform botify.ai affect the coaching and improvement of your AI fashions?
With tens of millions of customers participating in conversations with all kinds of characters on our platform, we’re capable of gather an infinite quantity of real-world interplay knowledge. This helps us perceive not solely how customers talk, but in addition what makes these interactions emotionally significant.
By analyzing this knowledge, we’re capable of fine-tune our fashions to be extra responsive and empathetic. It’s a steady cycle: consumer interactions present insights, permitting us to fine-tune and evolve the AI. This strategy permits us to enhance the conversational circulate, tone, and the general emotional intelligence of our avatars.
In essence, our B2C platform is a sort of real-time testing floor. The information we gather allows us to continuously evolve and adapt our AI to fulfill consumer expectations, and people enhancements instantly affect how we develop our B2B options as properly. It’s how we be certain that our AI stays not solely cutting-edge but in addition deeply human in its interactions.
How does Ex-human guarantee knowledge privateness and moral AI practices whereas utilizing massive quantities of consumer knowledge for coaching functions?
Information privateness and moral AI practices are our high priorities, particularly given the quantities of consumer knowledge we work with. At the beginning, we be certain that all knowledge is anonymized earlier than it’s used for any coaching or evaluation. This implies private identifiers are eliminated, so the info can’t be traced again to particular person customers, defending their privateness all through the method.
We even have strict knowledge dealing with protocols in place. Customers’ knowledge isn’t used with out their consent, and we’re totally clear about how the info is collected and utilized. Moreover, we recurrently evaluation our practices to remain in step with evolving knowledge safety legal guidelines and moral pointers.
Relating to coaching our AI, we place a powerful emphasis on guaranteeing that our fashions behave in a accountable and unbiased means. By continuously monitoring and testing our AI, we work to forestall any unintended biases from showing in our interactions. This mix of privateness safeguards and moral AI improvement ensures that we are able to ship emotionally clever and responsive AI with out compromising consumer belief or safety.
Ex-human’s avatars have considerably larger consumer engagement than platforms like Instagram. What’s the important thing to reaching such excessive ranges of consumer interplay?
The important thing lies within the emotional responsiveness – it’s what retains customers coming again and spending extra time interacting with our avatars.
One other issue is the extent of customization and personalization we provide. Customers can create and work together with all kinds of AI characters, every with its personal distinctive character and magnificence. Whether or not it’s chatting with a fictional character or creating a very custom-made avatar, customers really feel extra concerned and related to the expertise, making it way more participating than merely scrolling via content material on social media platforms.
Moreover, our deal with multimodal interactions, the place avatars reply with textual content, photographs, audio, and even video, provides to the immersive expertise. This makes customers really feel actively concerned in a story that adapts and grows with them, slightly than passively consuming content material. All of those parts collectively contribute to the upper ranges of engagement we see in comparison with social media platforms.
You’ve fashioned partnerships with corporations like Grindr. How do companies profit from integrating Ex-human’s AI, and what measurable outcomes have they seen?
We permit companies to supply extra personalised and interesting consumer experiences. Our know-how allows them to construct characters that have interaction customers in considerate, pure conversations. For instance, within the case of Grindr, we’ve launched options like an AI wingman that helps customers enhance their profiles and a digital companion to observe relationship conversations. These options not solely make the platform extra participating but in addition present sensible worth to customers.
By way of measurable outcomes, corporations have seen enhancements in consumer engagement and retention after integrating our AI options. This reveals how AI-driven characters can add actual worth to companies by creating deeper connections with customers.
How does your AI-driven engagement examine to conventional advertising and marketing strategies when it comes to buyer retention and conversion?
We’re capable of supply one thing way more immersive and personalised. Conventional advertising and marketing typically focuses on short-term consideration grabs or delivering static messages, however our platform is constructed round steady experiences—which permits for deeper engagement over time.
What actually units us aside is the extent of interplay. On common, customers spend over 60 minutes a day with our avatars, and our paying customers have interaction for even longer, exchanging a whole lot of messages. The mix of multimodal capabilities creates a way more participating expertise, akin to an AI-powered Netflix, the place customers change into a part of the story. This goes past what conventional advertising and marketing can obtain.
How do you see the way forward for AI avatars and digital people reworking industries like customer support, healthcare, or leisure?
In customer support, they may deal with routine queries extra effectively whereas sustaining a excessive degree of consistency, releasing up human brokers to deal with extra advanced points. This mix of automation and personalised help can considerably enhance response instances and general buyer satisfaction.
In healthcare, AI avatars might help with psychological well being help, providing companionship and even teaching, significantly in situations the place human professionals are stretched skinny. They is also used to information sufferers via administrative processes, making healthcare extra accessible and fewer intimidating for individuals who would possibly in any other case keep away from searching for assist.
In leisure, the chances are even broader. AI avatars can create completely new kinds of interactive content material, permitting customers to interact instantly with characters in ways in which conventional media can’t supply. Whether or not it’s a recreation, a digital live performance, and even digital influencers, AI can generate distinctive experiences which might be tailor-made to particular person preferences, opening up new income streams for the business.
What key classes have you ever realized out of your transition from Head of AI at Replika to founding and scaling your personal firm?
A key lesson I’ve realized within the shift is how dramatically the function adjustments. As an engineer, I might dive deep into technical challenges and deal with problem-solving, however as a founder, the scope expands considerably. Abruptly, you’re not simply constructing know-how—you’re additionally managing groups, working with traders, making strategic choices, and guaranteeing the corporate’s development on a number of fronts.
The hardest half was transferring from a hands-on, technical mindset to 1 that includes continuously switching between completely different roles and obligations. It’s much less about fixing one particular downside and extra about managing all the things concurrently, all whereas holding the general imaginative and prescient in sight. This broader perspective has been important for rising Ex-Human and navigating the entrepreneurial panorama.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to Ex-human.
