Crowd Media secures Talking Head licencing deal with ‘big five’ tech company

Crowd Media (ASX: CM8) has secured a licencing deal for its proprietary Talking Head artificial intelligence (AI) platform with an undisclosed “big five” tech company.

The milestone licencing deal follows Crowd achieving positive operating cash flow for the September quarter (Q1 FY2023) of $36,000 – up 210% on the previous corresponding period.

Under terms of the two-year agreement with the “big five” tech company, Crowd will initially supply three licences comprising three digital avatars and provide ongoing technical support.

The avatars will be designed in collaboration with the client and be programmed with conversational AI in French, German and English.

Commercial terms of the agreement remain confidential and additional digital avatars will require additional licences.

Crowd’s Talking Head platform combines AI with machine learning-based technology to generate digital avatars which appear visually as unique individuals.

Audio elements of the platform are generated from voice cloning or synthetic audio to provide corresponding sounds to accompany the visual elements.

Digital avatars are then powered by conversational AI to provide humanised interactions in real time across multiple languages.

Company milestone

Crowd chief executive officer Idan Schmorak said the new agreement was a milestone for the company.

He said Crowd’s conversational AI solution will address the major tech company’s business challenges and can be scaled across multiple languages, without additional hires and provide humanised interactions at scale globally.

“We are delighted to be working with such a forward-thinking company that has employees located around the world, and millions of customers.”

“Conversational AI has the potential to transform workplaces, delivering better experiences for both employees and customers,” Mr Schmorak said.

“This milestone, together with all the other commercial and operational achievements of the past quarter, validate Crowd’s vision.”

Technical achievement

Crowd also achieved a technical milestone during Q1 FY2023, which saw the Talking Head platform integrated with third-party 3D animated characters.

According to Crowd, this ability will create opportunities to potentially partner with video game creators and animators to apply conversational AI in the gaming sector.

To-date, interactions in games are using scripted with limited text-based responses from non-playing characters.

Bedtime Stories agreements

In addition to the major technical and licencing agreement milestones, Crowd announced that Talking Head storytelling application Bedtime Stories had been approved by mobile network operators in Oman and Kuwait.

These are based on similar revenue-sharing agreements, in addition to Portugal and United Arab Emirates where the product was first launched in July.

The company’s AstroVIP astrology service is now also available in the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Portugal under revenue-sharing agreements with network operators.

Both products have commenced localisation in Spanish, Slovakian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Bulgarian languages.

Mass distribution

Crowd has also commenced mass distribution of its Potion Games application in Oman having secured mobile network operator approval in that region under a revenue-share agreement.

Potion Games is an application which offers subscribers more than 200 different games and game guides.

Expansion into Oman continues Crowd’s growth into the Middle East-North Africa region where there is a high adoption of carrier billing and mobile wallets due to low rates of credit card ownership.

Potion Games is already available in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the UAE under mobile network operator agreements in which weekly subscriptions can be activated by a user’s phone number.

The product is also distributed in South Africa, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.