Meet Cleo, the first Digital Person in the audience-interactive sci-fi series Artificial

The very first Digital Person is about to create an experience shared by the Twitch audience as a collective. In the live, interactive sci-fi series called Artificial, Cleo, a Soul Machines’ Digital Person, embodies an artificial intelligence being on a journey to connect with humans.

Artificial is an innovative storytelling experience launched in 2018 by Bernie Su, a three-time Primetime Emmy award-winning writer/producer. The show runs on the Twitch TV streaming platform which allows the viewers to chat with the actors and drive the outcome of the story by answering polls. Four seasons of Artificial have been produced and can be viewed on TwitchTV. Season 4 introduced factions, an interactive storytelling tool that lets the audience choose a side and make decisions that impact the story. The leaders of these rival factions are virtual characters (known as Vtubers) played by live actors using motion capture technology.

In November 2020, Soul Machines, 96 Next, Bernie Su’s production company, and Artificial initiated the project to create Cleo, a Digital Person and virtual storyteller with the mission to emphasize the goodness of human-machine collaboration and showcase the softer side of AI. Unlike the scripted VTubers who are played by actors, Cleo autonomously interacts with the show hosts and tells an engaging story while integrating the live comments and choices of the audience.

During this collaboration. Soul Machines has defined and created Cleo’s personality, knowledge, and skills while 96 Next has worked on the integration into the Twitch streaming interface and associated tools for audience polling and the LifeScore adaptive music platform.

“The ability to interact with a digital character in a live Twitch show illustrates the power of digital people in entertainment. We are thrilled to partner with Bernie Su and ‘Artificial’ to introduce a new interactive opportunity for viewers of ‘Artificial,’” said Soul Machines co-founder and Chief Business Officer Greg Cross.

Digital people, like Cleo, enable leading organizations to personalize brand connections using human-machine collaboration. Subscribe to Artificialnext on Twitch and immerse into this new entertaining experience by chatting and polling to influence the story that Cleo has to tell. Once the season will be underway, you can also view the recorded episodes on the Artificialnext website.