Again in April, Information TikTok has been working on AI-generated avatars that advertisers can use to sell their products on the platform. Now the company has gone public with those plans, announcing new AI-generated “digital avatars” that it will begin offering to creators and brands in the app.
According to TikTok, the AI characters are meant to make it easier for creators and businesses to create branded content that still has a “human feel” but without the time and resources to produce a typical ad that’s highly designed and edited.
TikTok starts with two types of avatars: stock avatars based on paid actors and custom avatars based on existing creators and brand spokespersons. These avatars will then star in TikTok videos promoting the products and can be customized to speak different languages based on the intended audience.
The company says the new feature shows how generative AI can help creators reach more people on their platform (and potentially generate more ad revenue for the company). But after watching a few examples of these, I’m not too excited about a bunch of AI-powered creators taking over my For You feed.
Take the above example of a custom avatar shared by TikTok. The digital persona seems to be based on the TikTok performer . But even though the avatar looks like him, his speech and actions are not quite right. If you watch carefully, you will notice that there is a slight lack of head and hand movements. M3GAN vibes. And speaking of creepy robots, AI Adrienne has something very unsettling about her eyes.
Now, I’ve chatted with Lahens before, and I can confirm that he speaks more warmly and naturally than his AI avatar. Even the AI avatar at the top of this article based on creator O’Neil Thomas still has a 1,000-yard view that doesn’t represent Thomas. .
TikTok is far from the first company to experiment with “real” artificial intelligence, and even if you can’t quite put your finger on what it is, it’s revealing something a little disturbing. At least the company’s requires such content to receive prominent disclosures. And maybe the new avatars will help creators sell more TikTok Shop gadgets or other “viral” products. I hope TikTok can do something to make AI eyeballs feel a little less scary.
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