- Otter's CEO says AI avatars may be able to attend work meetings by the end of the year.
- The tech CEO said the avatars can act, talk and solve problems like certain workers.
- Digital work personas can save time and increase productivity — However, it is not without its challenges.
As a white-collar employee, you may be thinking: Really You must attend all scheduled meetings. Otter CEO Sam Liang, who says he has up to 10 meetings a day, wonders exactly that.
So what if an AI avatar that acts and speaks like an employee could be present in the (virtual) room on their behalf? According to the head of an AI-powered transcription software company, that means we can It could become a reality sooner than you think.
“The prototype could be operational later this year,” Liang told Business Insider, adding that Otter is already progressing toward that goal.
AI models are typically trained using a set of data to behave similarly to humans. AI avatars must be trained based on recorded meeting notes and audio data of the specific people they are trying to recreate, allowing them to act and converse exactly like them, Liang said. . Once it has enough information, the avatar could (in theory) speak in the cadence of the individual employee, participate in the conversation, and answer questions based on the employee's unique perspective.
Liang said he expects Otter's AI business personas to be able to answer 90% of the questions asked during meetings. If you get stuck with his remaining 10%, the question will be sent to a human worker with a note saying, “I don't know how to answer this question. Can you help me?”
Liang said if avatars can accurately represent employees, they can save time and increase productivity. He said bots could participate in meetings related to customer support, sales, and team status updates, freeing up employees to focus on more creative work and potentially increasing revenue for companies. said.
He said employees can also send virtual replicas to meetings held during their vacation.
But the path to building trustworthy AI avatars is fraught with technical and social hurdles.
Liang said it's “very difficult” to make a model understand the correct way to interact with a group of people, such as knowing when to speak, when to wait your turn, and when to shut up. This is because meeting etiquette varies depending on the content of the discussion.
He also points out that it's difficult to incorporate emotional cues into AI that a persona can use to determine whether to speak up or remain calm.
“It requires knowledge and emotional intelligence to participate in a productive way,” Liang said of AI.
Therefore, Liang believes that a persona needs to go through “several stages” before it behaves as envisioned.
But Liang believes the technology to create them already exists. Character.ai has developed an AI personality chatbot that can speak like celebrities like Elon Musk, he said. Meta's AI assistants are trained to recreate the personas of celebrities like Kendall Jenner and Tom Brady.
Otter itself launched a new feature this month that allows multiple people to ask the AI chatbot specific questions about recorded meetings. Liang believes this recent development is a step toward creating fully functional AI avatars.
However, the potential use of avatars in meetings does not mean that gatherings will soon become obsolete. CEOs still believe this is an effective and efficient way to exchange information across the company. AI will only accelerate that process.
But when it comes to one-on-one meetings with managers or annual reviews, Liang advises employees to think carefully about whether to include their digital twins in those meetings.
“You probably want to go alone,” he said.