AI-powered digital avatars that brands can create to say virtually anything to promote their product could soon be a common sight on TikTok owing to a new tool.
On June 17, TikTok disclosed that it would enlarge its Symphony ad suite to include “stock avatars” and an “AI dubbing” feature that it claims will assist brands in creating and localizing content.
The stock avatars are “all created from video footage of real paid actors licensed for commercial use.” According to TikTok, users can select an AI-powered “voice and accent” to recite a script that will be dubbed onto the avatar.
A video demonstration demonstrates that a text-to-speech tool can dub over the actors with voices in multiple languages and attempt to imitate the mouth movements of the relevant language. AI can also generate the script.
The system supports ten languages and dialects: English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. The application identifies and converts the input to the user’s target language.
TikTok introduced The AI-powered ad suite earlier this year, which includes a “virtual assistant” that can generate concepts and a script by crawling the platform for trends. The new avatar feature is a component of this suite.
TikTok has implemented a waitlist for restricted users to access the beta versions of the AI avatars, translation, and dubbing features.
TikTok Stars will receive “custom avatars”
The platform is also introducing “custom avatars” that replicate the appearance of content creators and brand representatives. These avatars possess the same “multi-language capabilities” as the stock bots.
“TikTok has announced that its creator community is currently conducting testing on custom avatars.”
To ensure complete transparency, TikTok automatically labels videos produced with AI tools as AI-generated. A demonstration video showcasing AI-cloned content creators displays a small frame with the label in the bottom corner.
The AI clones are not flawless. The video demonstrates the “uncanny valley,” a phenomenon in which the lip movements and gestures do not correspond to the spoken words.
TikTok entered the AI avatar market months after Meta introduced an AI chatbot in September that resembled numerous celebrities.
Meta cloned nearly 30 high-profile figures into AI bots, who now administer their Facebook and Instagram accounts. Among these figures are Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, and former FTX promoter Tom Brady.
