While much of the world is coming to terms with the rebrand of Facebook Inc to its new parent company Meta, artificial intelligence company Crowd Media (ASX: CM8) have been developing metaverse technology for the past three years and are tipped to see fresh interest in their digital human platform as a result. 

The rebranding of Meta comes as part of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of creating a metaverse – a digital universe where people can create their own online communities and interact in a digital replica of the real world. By doing so, people from all walks of life can seamlessly interact with those on the other side of the world via augmented reality. 

On its Company website, Meta says: “The metaverse is the next evolution of social connection. Our company’s vision is to help bring the metaverse to life, so we are changing our name to reflect our commitment to this future.” 

News of Meta’s rebrand caused ripples through the tech community last month with heightened interest in digital humans being discussed throughout social media and online forums. In order to deliver Zuckerberg’s vision, it will require replication of photos such as those posted on a Facebook user’s account to create an avatar of that person. One company with this technology already in motion is Crowd Media. 

Recent developments within Crowd Media’s Talking Head platform have accelerated commercialisation plans with CEO Idan Schmorak flagging their first commercial product to be launched by March 2022. 

Crowd’s Talking Head platform aims to produce digital avatars of real humans at just a fraction of the time and cost of current platforms by drawing on their 3D imaging, deep fake technology and artificial intelligence. Initial use cases of this technology centred around creating avatars for celebrities; however, new interest has been around the scalability of its use for everyday people. 

Current deepfake processes utilise hundreds of images with artificial intelligence to map facial features for construction and movement. Creating these deepfakes can be time consuming, labour intensive to source and require high loads of computing power. Crowd’s Talking Head platform has the potential to reduce all of those requirements. 

“We welcome the attention that Meta has drawn to the digital human technology which we have been early adopters of having identified its potential in conversational commerce and artificial intelligence,” said Schmorak. 

“Real use applications for the Talking Head platform originally centred around use in eCommerce but in recent months we have explored its use cases in telehealth also as a means for connecting the developing world with Western medicine as just one example.

“Based on the potentially heightened demand for avatars, we expect further commercial opportunities for our Talking Head platform to present as global interest around digital humans increases.” 

While the rebranding of Meta will likely be marked as a milestone in Facebook’s history, the concept of a digital universe is not new. However, none have tried to create realistic experiences and visuals as Meta and Crowd Media. 

Older examples include Sims, while digital universes have more recently been built using blockchain technology. Decentraland, for example, operates a digital universe where users create comic-like versions of themselves for online interactions where the universe’s native MANA cryptocurrency has a market cap of USD $4.8 billion. 

In addition to the appointment of Schmorak as CEO in September, Crowd Media also recently appointed Sytze Voulon to its Board with Voulon most recently leading Synlab Analytics & Services which was acquired in 2020 via a €550 million (AUD $851m) merger.