The Rise of Digital Avatars: How Your AI Twin Can Help Grow Your Business
You have used ChatGPT to boost your social media content or posted the results when an AI image generator magically changed a photo of you-in-sweats-on-your-couch into you-in-a-boardroom as a Prada-suited boss.
And that’s cool. But it doesn’t begin to compare to what you can do with what will soon be the most used AI tool by women small business owners: photo realistic digital avatars. You can expect to start seeing these avatars show up on the screen when you check into your hotel room, in your feed on social media and in nearly every customer service interaction. S
How can you harness this as a small business owner? How can you lead instead of follow?
What is a Digital Avatar?
First let’s define our terms. A digital avatar is an uncannily realistic digital version of a human, also called a synthetic avatar, digital twin, clone or AI avatar. They are life-like virtual characters that can mimic human speech, expressions and mannerisms. With multiple ways to customize your avatar, you can have versions with different hairstyles, outfits, and backdrops. You can either record what you want your avatar to say or use a text-to-speech tool that incorporates your voice. Then you can effortlessly translate that into 30 different languages with perfect accents.
These avatars provide a unique opportunity to engage customers in a more personalized and interactive way. You may have already seen large corporations using these (Nike recently launched 100 digital avatars - or ‘Athletars’ as it calls them – 3D digital representations of people as they engage with the brand). Digital avatars have huge potential to help grow small businesses. While you may be not be planning buying a technology company, as Nike did in 2018, you can take some small steps that will have a huge payoff.
Meet Jul.AI
I created my digital avatar a few months ago in New York City with Render, a startup that allows entrepreneurs, speakers and creators to make affordable avatars in their pop-up studios around the country. There are dozens of companies that can help you make digital twin, or you can choose from thousands of pre-made avatars. I wanted to make mine out of curiosity as a former filmmaker, as someone who loves new technology, and in part because I want to be an early adopter. I know avatars are here to stay and the technology is getting 100x more sophisticated each year. Soon these avatars will be able to turn in all directions and converse with each other using a ChatGPT-like function to generate responses. After the recording day in a studio, I had to wait two weeks to meet my digital twin so I used that time to crowd-source the name on social media (the winner: Jul.AI!).
“How do you get the busiest people in front of the camera often enough to create consistent content?” asks Jon Tota, Founder and CEO of Render. “Creating a Digital Avatar of yourself allows the face of a business to literally do two things at once. And at some point, this will just be another efficient way we all communicate and learn together.”
Digital avatar videos can also supplement and enhance online learning. When I taught my recent sales program, $50K in 21 Days, I was going to send an email recap every Friday with bullet points on what was discussed, but I was worried that format might be a bit boring, just another email getting lost in the fold of an overcrowded inbox. In an effort to make the recap more engaging, I started using my digital avatar to deliver the highlights of what they learned and received so much positive feedback from my students on this new format. My subject line was "cool or creepy?" Having an avatar is a great way to engage in a playful way with your customers.
More and more women are starting to adopt digital avatars, including Helen Todd, host of the Creativity Squared podcast which focuses on the intersection of AI and creativity. She says: “In a world with increasingly more deepfakes, I love that I have an ethically created A.I. avatar where I own all of the I.P. and can put "her" to work to streamline video production while I focus on growing my business (without makeup on most days!)”
How Women Can Dominate
Because of the potential uses of AI avatars on social media, women have an advantage here. We typically have wider networks and deeper connections on social media compared to men. As a parallel, women outperform men in crowdfunding. This because we tend to have a more established social media presence than men do. Analysis of over 450,000 seed crowdfunding campaigns from nine of the largest global crowdfunding platforms shows that female-led campaigns were 32% more successful at reaching their funding target than male-led campaigns. Additionally, using digital avatars to create videos for social media can be particularly advantageous for women because we have more societal pressure than men to look “camera-ready”. If you’re like me and take 30 minutes to an hour to get ready before making videos, supplementing content with your digital avatar is great for days when your to-do list feels like it’s never-ending. Plus it creates a kind of visual “curiosity hook” for your followers. So far my AI reels have outperformed my human reels on Instagram.
3 ways using a digital avatar can boost your business:
Virtual assistant: Companies have started using digital avatars as virtual assistants to help users learn how to use a specific program and troubleshoot any issues. This can be an effective strategy for your small business as well: imagine a small online boutique using a synthetic avatar to guide customers through their latest collection, offering styling tips, and answering inquiries in real-time. This not only enhances customer satisfaction but also sets the business apart in a crowded market.
Marketing: Whether you want to promote a product or just create more lighthearted and entertaining content on social media, digital avatars are captivating and sure to catch the attention of anyone scrolling through Instagram. The main way I’ve used my digital avatar so far is for social media marketing, and I’ve had a lot of success! Not only is it time-effective, it’s also cost-effective since I don’t need to hire a videographer as often and recouped time that I can spend writing copy or creating new programs.
Teaching: By creating how-to videos, product tutorials and guides, you can use a digital avatar for online learning and training. Having your avatar relay step-by-step instructions and demonstrate processes is a useful technique when you want to streamline your training process. You can also use your digital avatar as a kind of spokesperson for your business, conveying important updates and presentations.
Looking ahead, the digital avatar market is predicted to reach $270 billion by 2030 and we will start to see more “digital influencers” and synthetic avatars showing up where we have traditionally had humans. Embracing tools like digital avatars can provide a competitive edge for your business. So far, we’ve seen a gender disparity when it comes to embracing AI: recent data shows that 54% of men have incorporated AI into their personal or professional lives compared to 35% for women. However, women business owners have a unique chance to be at the forefront of adopting AI avatars and using this technology to make their business more time-effective, cost-effective, user-friendly, and social media savvy. Interested in making an avatar or just learning more? Set up a call on my booking page and I promise I won’t have Jul.AI show up (unless I am having a bad hair day, ha!).
additional reading:
PwC and The Crowdfunding Centre
Women outraise men in crowdfunding
Can you tell which of these images of faces are real and which are AI generated?