Unith signs digital avatar development agreement with NVISO Japan
Unith and NVISO Japan are also being assisted by a $117,000 grant from the European Union’s BonsAPPs program.
Unith (ASX: UNT) (previously known as Crowd Media Holdings) has signed a binding agreement with NVISO Japan KK to integrate behavioural analytics into digital humans in conversational settings for deployment into digital kiosks in Japan.
The new agreement will provide NVISO with access to Unith’s talking head technology for the purpose of building integrations into its own platform which features predictive analytics tied to emotional and transactional outcomes.
It will be assisted by a $117,000 grant from the European Union’s BonsAPPs program which is designed to help small-to-medium businesses in their digitisation processes by allowing them access to modular services available through the Bonseyes AI Marketplace.
BonsAPPs allows users to develop artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to solve real-world industry challenges at the deep edge that requires a number of AI artefacts and services produced by different stakeholders.
Three phases
Unith said the agreement will be rolled out in three phases — technical integrations, market entry and scaled commercialisation.
The integrations will be designed to deliver interactive digital avatars capable of understanding various behavioural and emotional facets of users through eye tracking and facial detection.
NVISO will be responsible for developing a packaged solution to target markets in Japan including kiosks, robots and interactive store assistants, as well as mobile solutions for healthcare and consumer markets and gaming.
It will also develop and commercialise solutions for a broader range of global markets, with proceeds split between NVISO and Unith under a 50:50 profit share agreement.
Distribution strategy
Unith chief executive officer Idan Schmorak said the NVISO partnership is consistent with a distribution strategy to scale the reach of Unith’s talking head technology while developing the platform.
“The Japanese market is well established for automation through computer-to-human interactions with digital characters and NVISO’s presence and expertise in Japan brings significant added value to this partnership,” he said.
“By deploying a digital avatar to a kiosk and humanising it with behavioural detection, we will deliver an artificial intelligence (AI) solution which can know how a human is feeling, understand their attentiveness and facilitate an outcome accordingly.”
Name change
Crowd Media Holdings officially changed its name to Unith in December, following shareholder approval at its annual general meeting.
Mr Schmorak said the new name encapsulates the company’s underlying technology which is “clean, commercial and agile”.
“Over the past 15 months, we have completely restructured our company, refreshing and energising our team, strengthening the balance sheet and optimising cash flow to develop cutting-edge technology which is changing the way businesses interact with their clients online,” he said.
“These operational and financial improvements along with our new vision and team has made us a strong tech company with exciting global growth opportunities.”