- Crowd Media (CM8) is an Australian and European company with an exciting new AI product
- Talking Head is a hyper-realistic and immersive AI platform with a huge range of applications in business and industry
- CEO Idan Schmorak spoke to The Market Herald about its applications in the challenging world of recruit induction and onboarding
- The global onboarding software market is estimated at USD$1.5 billion
- The use of real people as models for the AI interface humanises the experience and makes it highly immersive
- Crowd Media is on the threshold of realising a plan to generate recurring revenue streams by licensing subscriptions to Talking Head
- The company has completed a “transformation” and believes it stands ready to enter a profitable future
The world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is advancing at a fantastic rate, and it’s already affecting our lives in ways many of us don’t even realise.
The trouble with a lot of AI, though, is that it’s not as engaging as it can be — we’ve all had those chatbot experiences where we type questions and receive typed answers, which gets tiresome pretty quickly.
Local Australian and European company Crowd Media (CM8) is set to change the interactive AI experience with its soon-to-be-released Talking Head AI technology.
Talking Head creates a hyper-realistic ‘humanised’ immersive channel of communication using an AI version of a real person — based on video and images of the person it represents — to carry on a conversation with the person at the keyboard, who can use a combination of microphone and/or type.
The interface can be based on a manager, co-worker, executive, or even someone from outside the business.
The idea is to engage the viewer and keep their attention, which is something that type-only chatbots have a problem doing.
An exciting HR onboarding application
Although Talking Head has a wide range of applications, from customer care to entertainment to medicine, according to Crowd Media CEO Idan Schmorak, one of the applications generating intense interest is in Human Resources — in particular, recruit onboarding.
In today’s recruitment arena, where personnel shortages have created a “sellers” market for job seekers, onboarding is more critical than ever to retaining new staff.
Good, effective onboarding can not only increase recruit retention by 82 per cent, but it can also significantly enhance productivity. On the other hand, poor onboarding practices may contribute to the alarming rate of around one-third of new hires leaving the job within six months.
How Talking Head helps to onboard
The process of onboarding can be costly in terms of time and resources, as ideally no less than four individuals should be involved in the induction, training and management of a new hire. These four are a “buddy”, a coach, a manager and a mentor.
While the Talking Head interface can’t fulfil all of those roles, it can take over many of the more repetitive and mechanical tasks, such as introducing and reviewing company policies, training and development, systems onboarding and micro-training, provision and discussion of the onboarding manual, and even a virtual tour of the premises.
A humanised persona explaining things like the company’s vision and mission is more engaging and therefore more likely to sustain the new staff member’s attention.
Compared to top-rated onboarding apps such as Workday, Gusto, Zenefits and Lessonly, which are currently restricted to keyboard-only inputs, and the capacity to serve up documents and videos with the limited interactivity common to chatbots, Talking Head is more immersive, likeable and more humanly responsive.
It is also highly cost-effective, as well as having the production advantage of utilising real staff members in key roles.
The global onboarding software market
In 2016, the global market for onboarding software — which is licensed for access via the cloud or installed in the client’s computer system — reached some US$447 million (A$721 million).
In 2022 that market is estimated at more than three times that figure, at US$1.5 billion. Thanks in part to the pandemic, the growth in the market has been spectacular, with an expansion rate over 2021/22 assessed at 22.7 per cent. By 2026, the market will have added another $200 million in sales annually to reach US$1.7 billion.
Clearly, the potential for a breakthrough product like Talking Head is phenomenal. And according to CM8 CEO Idan Schmorak, the company is ideally placed to take advantage of the opportunity presented.
Crowd Media “at the end of a transformation” — and the beginning of a revolution
Mr Idan Schmorak told The Market Herald that Talking Head was in advanced beta testing and would soon be ready for full release.
He said that when available on the international market, the cost structure would be based on business-to-business (B2B) subscriptions.
“The company has invested heavily in the development of Talking Head,” Mr Schmorak said.
“But the full release version will offer investors high margins and the recurring revenue streams the subscriptions generate.”
Mr Schmorak also said that Crowd Media had completely transformed over the last year or two and was now a wholly tech-centred and innovative business staffed by a young and enthusiastic team.
“We have a clean sheet, and we’re ready to make solid inroads into a range of highly competitive markets,” he said.
“The onboarding application has us really excited, and we’re inspired to see what sort of reaction the HR community has. It feels like we’re at the end of a long road of development, and the beginning of a new road that will see us become prosperous and influential in the burgeoning AI space.”
And that’s just the sort of rhetoric investors love to hear from innovative CEOs.