TechCrunch reporter creates interactive digital avatar
Dominic-Madori Davis from TechCrunch visits Synthesia's New York office to build her own interactive digital twin that answers questions about her reporting.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- TechCrunch reporter Dominic-Madori Davis creates an interactive digital avatar with Synthesia
- The avatar is specifically trained to answer questions regarding her venture fraud investigation story
- The creation process takes place inside a mini film studio at Synthesia's New York office
- The technology combines voice-to-text, agentic language, text-to-voice, and video animation models
Earlier this summer, Alexandru Voica, head of corporate affairs at video-generation startup Synthesia, sent a link introducing the newest addition to their PR team. It was an interactive virtual avatar trained to handle common press inquiries. For reporter Dominic-Madori Davis, this encounter signaled the ultimate milestone for utilizing artificial intelligence within public relations.
By September, Synthesia welcomed Davis to their newly opened office space in New York City. Originally launched in the U.K., Synthesia stands out as a prominent digital avatar startup alongside peers like D-ID, HeyGen, and Colossyan. The company achieved a $4 billion valuation earlier in the year and reported surpassing $100 million in ARR the previous year.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
Synthesia enables corporate enterprises to construct interactive training videos powered by AI avatars, recently introducing Roleplay Sessions to help employees practice pitches. When the team invited Davis to craft her own AI avatar during the office opening event, she accepted immediately. This marks the first time Synthesia has built a digital avatar for a journalist or any external individual outside of Voica.
Production took place inside a compact film studio nestled within Synthesia's office, capturing numerous reference photographs and a two-minute voice recording. After providing formal consent, digital twin Dom was officially formed, featuring personal script-reading avatars as well as interactive conversational counterparts, both available with and without glasses.
"This is the first time Synthesia has made a digital avatar for a journalist (or for anyone, period, outside of Voica)."
Dominic-Madori Davis
The tech stack behind the interactive avatar integrates voice-to-text recognition, agentic language processing, text-to-voice synthesis, and proprietary video animation models. Furthermore, enterprise clients can incorporate alternative labs like Cartesia, ElevenLabs, Google, or OpenAI, and host their avatars on preferred cloud infrastructure.
Integrating AI avatars into journalistic workflows sparks crucial conversations about the future of media presentation. While synthetic twins offer innovative avenues for content delivery and interaction, foundational elements like human trust, investigative depth, and personal connection remain inherently tied to human reporters.
After a couple of days of development, Davis tested both her personal script-based avatar talking about autumn in New York and her deterministic interactive avatar trained strictly on her venture fraud feature article. The experience left her pondering the broader implications of whether digital avatars might eventually augment or reshape how news is presented to the public.
Source: TechCrunch
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