UneeQ is an intelligent AI interface company that is developing the most advanced autonomous digital human platform available for customer interactions – today and in tomorrow’s metaverse. Pulse 2.0 interviewed UneeQ founder and CEO Danny Tomsett to learn more about the company.
Danny Tomsett’s Background
What is Danny Tomsett’s background? Tomsett said:
“I’m the CEO and founder of UneeQ, an AI interface company that makes digital humans for enterprise organizations. I am passionate about humanizing technology, particularly creating authentic, emotionally resonant interactions between customers and their brands as well as employees and their companies.”
“Before UneeQ, at 25 I founded and exited a telecommunications company. I was fortunate enough to win the Sir Richard Branson Virgin Business Challenge; along with being selected as an EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist at UneeQ.”
“I’m originally from Auckland, New Zealand, and moved to Austin in 2019 with my wonderful wife and four children.”
Formation Of UneeQ
How did the idea for the company come together? Tomsett shared:
“In 2016, UneeQ (formerly FaceMe) began working on the first interactive digital human project. The project was for the Australian National Disabilities Insurance Scheme (NDIS), and the digital human was designed to improve access to information for people with disabilities. Instead of being required to type, they could communicate easily using natural language, while getting the support of a lifelike avatar. Nadia was a pioneering project, and was even voiced by Cate Blanchett. The idea of digital humans was born – an idea my team had originally sketched on the back of a napkin! I’m glad we did, because today, our technology is being used in places like the City of Amarillo to provide better, fairer access to municipal information for local families. Not to mention companies like Gartner have predicted that the digital human market will be worth $125b in the next decade or so.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Tomsett’s favorite memory working for the company so far? Tomsett reflected:
“It’s difficult to choose, but our recreation of Albert Einstein comes to mind. Working with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, we built Digital Einstein, a lifelike recreation of the great scientist, launched 100 years after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Digital Einstein was designed to introduce new generations to such an iconic figure, with AI simulating his mind and personality. What we didn’t expect is that during the Pandemic, he would be relied upon by people who just needed a chat and some companionship during lockdown. It was an eye-opening experience about the bonds people can create with digital humans when the AI can reflect some of the emotions people are experiencing with empathy.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Tomsett explained:
“UneeQ has two proprietary AI solutions driving our digital human offering.”
“Synanim is our AI animation system which controls everything from how the digital humans react to the world around them. Synanim autonomously allows the digital human to express the right facial expressions, body language, and even minute details like breathing and blinking rate, depending on the conversation, so they can independently express excitement, happiness, joy, and many other blends of emotions in real-time.”
“Synapse, meanwhile, is our intelligent orchestration platform. Brands are relying more on integrations with large language models, RAG, natural language processing systems, third-party integrations, and plenty more AI services. Synapse orchestrates all these various applications, prepares them for speech, and ensures the output is brand-safe. It controls both the quality and speed of digital human interaction, so enterprise brands can offer impressive and memorable experiences to their customers.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Tomsett and the team faced in building the company? Tomsett acknowledged:
“When we started with Nadia, and even in the following years, there were severe limits on what conversational AI could achieve. We were very early in our experimentation with LLMs, and we were the first digital human company to launch an experience driven by GPT3, in 2020. This cut the burden of creating digital human conversation from months and even sometimes years down to weeks. But we still needed a way to ensure quality and control for the LLMs so major brands could trust the output to a greater degree, which is why we created Synapse.”
Evolution Of UneeQ’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Tomsett noted:
“As an AI company from 2016, we’ve made significant improvements in the aliveness of our digital humans – not just in how they look but how they behave. To this end, we’ve invested in how we simulate things like personality, so enterprises can launch unique experiences that best represent their brand, not just another chatbot. At the same time, we’ve invested in commercializing the technology with established use cases (like eCommerce product experts, or training solutions), as well as a robust platform that can integrate with hundreds of other technologies, so our clients can improve their time to value.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Tomsett cited:
“Each year, we’ve achieved significant progress – whether it was the launch of key projects like Digital Einstein, or Sama for Qatar Airways earlier this year. Our digital humans have held millions of minutes of conversation, and we’ve expanded our company through key partnerships with major technology players like Dell Technologies, Accenture, PwC, NVIDIA, and others.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Tomsett about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“There are plenty to speak of. One of the most recent initiatives has been for the City of Amarillo, where we launched Emma; she’s an incredible project, designed by our team of artists to embody the spirit of the city. She has a deep backstory to help bring her to life as a resident, and an exemplary use case in providing multilingual, frictionless access to government information and resources, regardless of what language you speak.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Tomsett assessed:
“We believe the TAM is aligned with the adoption of Large Language models as digital humans become an important modality of choice, supporting a TAM of over $500 billion.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Tomsett affirmed:
“We have the most open digital human platform in the world, so whatever software, platforms or AI services you want your digital human to utilize, we can integrate. Our significant investments in the quality of our digital humans also makes them industry-leading – in both the aliveness of our digital humans (and therefore the impact of the experience on customers and end users) and their quality, meaning conversations are fast, functional, low-latency, expressive, and engaging.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Tomsett pointed out:
We’re preparing for our Series B funding round and targeting a milestone of having 500 enterprise customers based on our growing pipeline. We’re also excited to launch more pre-trained solutions for a digital workforce – providing immediate value, out-of box configuration for many roles where digital humans are proven to excel.
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Tomsett concluded:
“Spectators of the digital human landscape will notice a rise in the use of deepfake technologies to create humanlike experiences. It’s worth noting that we’ve consciously decided against this approach, for various reasons. Perhaps the biggest is the issue of trust. A study in 2023 found that between 27–50% of people can’t tell the difference between an AI-generated deepfake video and a real one – and it’s only going to get more difficult to distinguish real from fictitious, not easier. We don’t believe enterprises have an appetite to use the same technology, often used to deceive and scam, to provide engaging interaction with their customers.”
“UneeQ digital humans are created with the promise that they’ll never deceive people into thinking they’re real. It’s why we rely on CGI to create our digital humans at UneeQ, so it’s clear at first sight that it’s not human, and isn’t pretending to be. They’re more akin to video game characters, and have associations with fun and entertainment, not deceit and deception.”
