Hey PH community! First off, I want to give a huge shoutout to @garrytan for Hunting this launch. Fun fact, Garry personally designed a feature (popout CTAs) during YC office hours, and we maintained that design in production for a long time :) Anyways, along with @devongall, I'm one of the Co-founders of @vidyard and am incredibly excited to share our newest feature with you all. We know that video is a critical tool for go-to-market teams looking to improve response rates, speed up sales cycles, and close more deals. But we’re all looking for extra efficiency these days. That’s why we’ve been reimagining the future of video selling with the help of AI. I’m personally passionate about the role AI can play in driving innovation and efficiency in business-critical tasks but it’s not about AI for AI's sake. It’s about building great products that enhance seller productivity to help deliver better buyer experiences. And the team has been working diligently over the past 18 months to bring this vision to life with AI Avatars. AI Avatars are a totally new way to create Vidyard videos. Now you can effortlessly generate high-quality, personalized videos at scale with a hyper-realistic avatar that looks and sounds just like you. Videos can be quickly generated with just a written script (in any language), allowing you to personalize your message to any prospect easily. I can’t wait to hear what you think AND see what you create. I’m happy to answer any questions you have, so please drop them in the comments.

@michaellitt congrats on the launch. I have been struggling with an AI avatar to automate our video content. Heygen failed miserably and costly as well. Hope this could be that magic i am looking for.

@imraju we would love to hear your feedback on AI Avatars! Feel free to book time with our team to learn more about this feature and how it could potentially help you: https://www.vidyard.com/contact-...

@shivam_tiwari24 thanks for your support 🙌

@astharattan - haha thanks for watching the video. Fun fact, instead of booking time in the studio / memorizing lines, I created that training video on my own time, talking about my dog Pepe. The team and I were then able to work with different scripts, etc. to produce the output, completely asynchronously and from all over the world. I didn't have to memorize lines, we didn't have to coordinate schedules. It was the easiest video shoot I've ever done!

@astharattan thank you! This is our very first release video featuring an AI Avatar ✨This feature is a game changer for sellers, but it also opens so many doors for marketers. My favourite marketing use-case: create an AI Avatar once, and then feed it a custom script for every Product launch announcement! You can now generate a tailored launch message from your CEO/Product/Marketing team in minutes.

@pamsny We love a good plot twist, glad you did too Pam! Creating your own AI avatar is really simple, and all it takes is a two-minute training video you can record yourself. We recommend using the best camera you have available (often a smartphone) with good, even and uniform lighting. Some Vidyardians set up time with our video marketing team to record studio-quality avatars, but honestly, I'm very happy with the version I recorded with just my webcam! If you want some more information, this is a great resource for how to create the best possible avatar https://knowledge.vidyard.com/hc...

@pamsny great question! Love that you enjoyed that little hook in the video! You do have to provide a training video (at least 2 minutes) so it can capture your tone and likeness. That video plays a big role in how your Avatar will turn out. It's important to be expressive and natural among a few other things. We've included some best practices here: https://knowledge.vidyard.com/hc...

@aman_wen Thanks for the question Aman! Cloning the user's voice is one of the most important parts to get right here - we will replicate the tonality and expressions of the user's training video, so we encourage our users to submit content that reflects their typical sales pitch tonality, including being very expressive in both their voice and facial expressions. Users can then create multiple avatars with different personalities in order to convey the right expression and mood for the content. We're also really excited to be working on technology to allow users to prompt in the script for certain expressions, emotions or body movements in the future.

@aman_wen that's exactly right! Here's a help article our team put together with lots of best practices to ensure users get the best possible version. Being expressive is most certainly important. https://knowledge.vidyard.com/hc...

@shushant_lakhyani thank you! Great use case;)

@shushant_lakhyani Some of our customers are considering giving their agency an avatar of the speaker rather than having to sit with the Agency for hours on end getting the perfect cut. It let's those video producers create exactly the content their looking for, edit the script up to the last minute, and even do a video shoot entirely remotely! As someone who is often speaking in front of our video marketing team, or external agencies, I'm very excited to deploy my avatar to do this task for me!

@shushant_lakhyani So many use-cases in and out of sales! Agreed.

@johnkyeremeh That's John - really appreciate the support here, and would love to hear your feedback as you try it out!

@johnkyeremeh Thanks so much for the support, John. In interviews with users, that topic came up frequently, and it was a critical insight that led us to building AI Avatars. We know from a LOT of experience that video messages improve response rates, help book more meetings, and speed up sales cycles but we know that creating these videos at scale can be difficult. That's why we're so excited about the possibility of AI Avatars to help improve communication and reduce the need for recording and re-recording every time. Of course, we still see a big, big value in "human-in-the-loop" recording and video creation, but when it comes to scaling outreach and adding a personal-touch to your communication, AI Avatars is an absolute game changer!

@johnkyeremeh super excited to hear about your experience as well as see an AI video output example down the road!

@johnkyeremeh so great to hear that! Thanks for the support!

@aydin_mirzaee Thanks so much for the support, Aydin! I'm excited to see the efficiencies that AI Avatars can unlock for the team at Fellow! P.S. Big, BIG fan of Fellow here at Vidyard. Not sure how I'd manage without it 💚

@aydin_mirzaee @thompskeithr Love Fellow. No agenda, no attenda!!!

@aydin_mirzaee @thompskeithr @melissa_hawkes Mel I was literally about to say the same thing! That's my fav tagline for calendar invites :D

@aydin_mirzaee @thompskeithr Big fan of Fellow over here, too! What about using AI Avatars to make a quick pre-meeting video brief? I love to include video as part of my pre-read/watch for big project kickoffs and link it within the agenda. Thinking this feature would help with efficiencies and complement the Fellow co-pilot for meeting follow-up. Thoughts?

@michaellitt @jeff_gadway1 Amazing - thanks Jeff! Appreciate you sharing those use-cases, we're hearing all kinds of inspiring ideas with the launch today! And I think you might be on to something with the combination w Prospector idea! Stay tuned. 😉

@bradydowling we're using a mix of commercial and publicly available models to get the best output. And we built AI Avatars to fit seamlessly into sales workflow. It's an easy 3 step process to get up and running: 2 minute training video, create a script and deploy into your sales channels.

@bradydowling Great question! We use a variety of commercial models and open source models to replicate the user's face and voice. The primary face generation model is a 3D Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) model which replicates realistic lip, chin, cheek, nose and eyebrow movements.

@jonwhitby Hey Jon, absolutely! AI Avatars are part of the Vidyard Messages product, meaning you can now generate AI videos in an existing GTM workflow. With Vidyard Messages and AI Avatars, you can easily generate and share videos in emails and private messages or embed videos on your website and in your product. A Vidyard Business Plan would be the perfect way to equip many users with the ability to generate AI videos at scale.

@thompskeithr Thanks, I just scheduled a call to learn more.

@thompskeithr @jonwhitby - 💚🔥

@sarah_mansour1 Thanks Sarah - that was actually one of the critical insights that led us to build AI Avatars in the first place. We heard from users that, although video messages are super effective, sometimes creating high-energy, error-free videos in one take can be challenging. Thankfully, now with AI Avatars, you can easily generate a video from a script saving you from recording and re-recording every time!

@richelle_gagne Love to see the design use cases here! I sure hope it saves you more time in your day to day so you can focus on your amazing designs.

@richelle_gagne I agree with your comment. Having this feature makes it easier to explain an opportunity or idea by just creating a script i can get my avatar to generate for me in a video rather than recording multiple videos trying to get through the same topic

@trent_kennelly Thanks so much for the support Trent!

@trent_kennelly we really appreciate the support! Thank you so much.

@diegovonsohsten The PLG king himself. Thanks for supporting the launch Diego!

@shubhagata_sengupta amazing! thanks Shub

@10xmarketer We're giving some thought on how best to approach customizing an avatar after the fact, especially when it comes to tone and expression. The great news is that you'll be able to have more than one avatar of yourself so you can have an avatar for home, the office, a coffee shop, etc. in a variety of different clothing options. I personally have one from my home office and one that we shot in our video studio.

@erica_morgan1 Thanks so much for the support Erica