Artem Rodichev is the Founder and CEO of Ex-human, an organization centered 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 well-liked 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 well-liked conversational AIs. What impressed you to depart 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 folks join with expertise on an emotional degree. As rewarding because it was, I all the time felt there was extra potential for AI past what we had been constructing. I noticed a possibility to broaden AI’s potential throughout a number of sectors and use circumstances.
At Replika, the main focus was totally on making a companion AI, however I started to examine how conversational AI may very well be built-in into numerous functions, providing customized, emotionally clever interactions for a wide selection of use circumstances — from leisure to enterprise. That realization sparked the thought for Ex-Human, the place we purpose to develop AI expertise that not solely supplies companionship but additionally 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 remodeling how folks 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 plenty of time refining how our AI characters work together with customers, guaranteeing that they’re not simply reactive however actually 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 interact in a method 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 decide 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’ll reply with voice, ship contextual pictures, 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 permits them to construct full tales with the AI characters. On the finish of the day, we purpose to create AI that goes past customary 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 growth 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 accumulate an unlimited quantity of real-world interplay knowledge. This helps us perceive not solely how customers talk, but additionally 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 movement, tone, and the general emotional intelligence of our avatars.
In essence, our B2C platform is a form of real-time testing floor. The info we accumulate permits us to continually 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 make sure that our AI stays not solely cutting-edge but additionally 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. In the beginning, we make sure 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 repeatedly assessment our practices to remain consistent with evolving knowledge safety legal guidelines and moral pointers.
With regards to coaching our AI, we place a robust emphasis on guaranteeing that our fashions behave in a accountable and unbiased method. By continually monitoring and testing our AI, we work to stop any unintended biases from showing in our interactions. This mix of privateness safeguards and moral AI growth ensures that we will 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 attaining 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 elegance. Whether or not it’s chatting with a fictional character or creating a very personalized avatar, customers really feel extra concerned and related to the expertise, making it far more participating than merely scrolling by means of content material on social media platforms.
Moreover, our give attention to multimodal interactions, the place avatars reply with textual content, pictures, 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, moderately than passively consuming content material. All of those components collectively contribute to the upper ranges of engagement we see in comparison with social media platforms.
You’ve shaped partnerships with corporations like Grindr. How do companies profit from integrating Ex-human’s AI, and what measurable outcomes have they seen?
We enable companies to supply extra customized and interesting consumer experiences. Our expertise permits them to construct characters that interact 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 follow courting conversations. These options not solely make the platform extra participating but additionally present sensible worth to customers.
When it comes to 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 much more immersive and customized. 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 interact for even longer, exchanging a whole bunch of messages. The mixture of multimodal capabilities creates a way more participating expertise, akin to an AI-powered Netflix, the place customers turn out to be 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 remodeling industries like customer support, healthcare, or leisure?
In customer support, they might deal with routine queries extra effectively whereas sustaining a excessive degree of consistency, liberating up human brokers to give attention to extra advanced points. This mix of automation and customized assist can considerably enhance response instances and total buyer satisfaction.
In healthcare, AI avatars might help with psychological well being assist, providing companionship and even teaching, notably in situations the place human professionals are stretched skinny. They may be used to information sufferers by means of administrative processes, making healthcare extra accessible and fewer intimidating for individuals who may in any other case keep away from searching for assist.
In leisure, the chances are even broader. AI avatars can create solely new sorts 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 sport, a digital live performance, and even digital influencers, AI can generate distinctive experiences which are tailor-made to particular person preferences, opening up new income streams for the business.
What key classes have you ever discovered out of your transition from Head of AI at Replika to founding and scaling your personal firm?
A key lesson I’ve discovered within the shift is how dramatically the function modifications. As an engineer, I might dive deep into technical challenges and give attention to problem-solving, however as a founder, the scope expands considerably. All of a sudden, you’re not simply constructing expertise—you’re additionally managing groups, working with traders, making strategic selections, and guaranteeing the corporate’s progress on a number of fronts.
The hardest half was shifting from a hands-on, technical mindset to at least one that entails continually switching between completely different roles and duties. It’s much less about fixing one particular downside and extra about managing every little thing concurrently, all whereas preserving 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 good interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to Ex-human.
