UNITH releases demo of ChatGPT integration ahead of platform launch

Digital human software developer UNITH (ASX: UNT) is set to launch a new website this week that will reflect its recent rebranding as a company focused on “unifying brands with technology”.

With this rebranding comes a new commercial and technical roadmap that outlines the route towards a soft launch of its phase three self-service platform by the end of the calendar year. This map continues the path to commercialisation the company embarked on last year.

UNITH is developing technology that aims to humanise interactions between businesses and their customers through machine learning and conversational artificial intelligence (AI).

It claims it can even replace real employees with a more efficient digital human avatar in some cases, such as working 24/7 without the need for holidays.

The company is currently in the process of integrating its technology with OpenAI’s language generator ChatGPT to transform its platform from guided conversation to open conversation by the end of 2023.

ChatGPT integration

This integration, which is being supported by a recent $4.5 million private share placement, allows access to ChatGPT’s natural language processing model and enhances UNITH’s platform by enabling users to have improved contextual responses based on users’ queries.

“Guided conversations were time consuming to create and to some extent, predefined, even if from a very large area of questions and answers,” UNITH chief executive officer Idan Schmorak told investors in a briefing last week.

By integrating with ChatGPT to enable open conversation, Mr Schmorak explained that businesses could upload any form of document or presentation into the system and have it processed by UNITH’s technology.

He provided a demonstration during the investor presentation using a digital avatar customer service attendant to answer questions about Sydney Trains based on a Wikipedia page.

“The main difference between the system we had until now and the one we’re working on is that the answers are generated based on the data set we have fed with. We didn’t feed her with pre-set answers, we have fed the machine with the information, and she is able to form these answers based on the GPT ability,” Mr Schmorak explained.

UNITH says with this ChatGPT integration its platform will have the ability to use any existing data set such as an employee handbook or government policy, and provide answers which are 100% accurate, rather than just scraping the entire internet for an answer that might be incorrect.

Mr Schmorak acknowledged the recent buzz around ChatGPT saying the company is happy to be in the midst of a “media and attention-attracting ecosystem”, although he reiterated UNITH has been working on this technology for some time and it was not an off-the-cuff decision to integrate with ChatGPT once its popularity soared.

Talking Head platform development

In the last six months, UNITH’s development team has undertaken major technological updates to its Talking Head platform including increasing the efficiency of real-time video processing to 53% and improving Talking Head creation capacity to 50% (with more than 200 talking heads in the company’s internal library that can communicate in 60+ languages).

UNITH announced a deal last October with a ‘Big Five’ tech company which purchased three licences for the Talking Head platform.

Mr Schmorak revealed at the briefing that the first out of three products (talking head digital avatars) has been delivered on time and a testing period is underway.

“We are getting very good initial responses,” he said, adding the company sees “incredible potential working with one of the biggest companies in the world” but so far cannot disclose the client’s identity due to the nature of the deal.

New commercial and technical road map

UNITH’s roadmap, as outlined by Mr Schmorak, is targeting the soft launch of a self-service platform in which users can onboard themselves, choose a digital voice, then create either a guided conversation (inputting question and answer scenarios) or upload their knowledge base to be processed using the GPT technology.

Mr Schmorak said once the platform is ready the company aims to work vertically, adjusting it for sales and marketing, to be able to go to market and commercialise it.

This pathway to launch will track alongside Talking Head technical developments in human likeness, including face restoration, lips optimisation and empathy generation, and head and body motion.

Another focus for UNITH over the year is its subscription division, under which Mr Schmorak said the company will continue to launch new AI products and penetrate new markets with Africa being the latest target.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=498OoYQs49k