Crowd Media launches children’s entertainment app Bedtime Stories with AI-generated storyteller

Parents around the world will soon have a handy new app to keep their children entertained for hours-on-end thanks to artificial intelligence company Crowd Media (ASX: CM8) which has confirmed the launch of their Bedtime Stories application.

Families of Portugal and the United Arab Emirates will be the first to gain access to Bedtime Stories with Crowd Media securing mass distribution rights in those regions first. With those approvals, Crowd is in the process of localising books into Portuguese and Arabic but more languages will be added as more territories are unlocked with customer subscriptions starting from €4.00 per week.

In addition to those mobile network approvals, Crowd has also secured similar approvals in The Netherlands where they will launch another entertainment-focused application, Astrology VIP. Once logged in with their mobile number, a user will be able to interact with the digital avatar ‘Astra’ using voice commands to request a variety of astrology readings that include horoscopes, tarot cards and numerology readings with subscription starting from from €2.50 per week. 

Both products were developed from Crowd’s Talking Head platform which uses AI to generate digital avatars that can converse with humans in real time. The launches across three different countries further highlight the platform’s capabilities to scale individual products into new regions and open revenue opportunities from new audiences. 

“Distribution approvals of Bedtime Stories and Astrology VIP marks the successful integration of Talking Head technology into our Subscription line of products,” said Crowd Media CEO, Idan Schmorak. 

“Both entertainment products showcase the capabilities of our platform’s ability to convert text to audio-visual, while interacting with users in multiple languages which provides opportunities to upscale the products into new markets.” 

The launches come just three months after Schmorak unveiled Crowd Media’s updated road map for their Talking Head platform which can generate digital avatars that look and sound like real people. Included in the detailed road map were core technology upgrades to the visual elements that still enable the platform to deliver interactive avatars using minimal bandwidth. For Bedtime Stories and Astrology VIP, both are browser-based and can be accessed on any computer or smart device without the need to download a third party app. 

Crowd Media will retain up to 80% of revenue generated from subscriptions of Bedtime Stories and Astrology VIP with the remainder being shared with the mobile networks. 

In addition to being a major milestone met in Crowd’s road map, the launches of Bedtime Stories and Astrology VIP will be the first conversational AI products where Crowd will generate revenue from consumers. Previous revenue generating deals with PangeaMed, SourceFlare and Impssbl have all been enterprise agreements to gain access to Crowd’s conversational AI technology. 

Crowd Media is expected to report their June quarter results next week, but for the 9 months to 31 March 2021, the Company had $4.9m in customer receipts with $0.02m positive cash flow.

2022 has long been flagged as the year of commercialisation for the Talking Head platform.  This is expected to include more subscription-based products before the end of the year as part of Crowd’s plans to up-scale the Subscription division into more languages and territories.