CRITERION: Fluent in over 60 forms of communication, are these bots the future of social work?

Robots are set to take over the world. Fake news? Not entirely, but at least UNITH’s realistic AI avatars are designed to assist humanity.

A smartly dressed mental healthcare professional with a kindly face and pleasant voice, Sarah expressed heartfelt empathy as the patient outlined his issues.

“It’s understandable that this situation can cause you a great deal of anxiety,” she cooed.

In case you haven’t guessed, Sarah is not humanoid, but a hyper-realistic robot that could be the first port of call for many types of patients at cash-strapped health services.

Sarah and her virtual colleagues don’t emanate from the Silicon Valley, but are the brainchild of the ASX-listed AI ‘conversational commerce’ minnow, Unith (ASX:UNT).

The algorithm-based digital human platform combines AI with machine learning to generate digital avatars that appear visually as “unique individuals”.

Of course there’s nothing new about digital avatars. But UNITH is thinking outside the bot with its hyper-realistic models – not 3D-rendered ones – and their ability to sustain real-time conversations (as opposed to responding to user input text).

“We create and scale the ability to speak on a one-on-one conversation with a synthetic being that sounds and looks like a human,” says UNITH CEO Idan Schmorak, a Barcelona-based tech entrepreneur and former Israeli Air Force captain.

“It’s a very simple idea but complicated to execute.”

Schmorak joined UNITH in 2021. Formerly known as Crowd Media and before that Crowd Mobile, the company was a crowdfunding (influencer) platform before it started talking about ‘conversational commerce’ in 2020.

With the ability to speak 60 languages, the platform has been deployed by Ukraine’s Alliance for Public Health. The $164,000 contract involves cloning social workers, including representatives from the war-torn nation’s LTQB community.

Schmorak says the platform could be used as a nursing triage substitute, or for preventative care.

In bad news for out-of-work actors, the platform can be used to train real doctors and nurses with a digital patient who fake the symptoms of various illnesses.

Initial non-health clients include the insurance start-up firm Ensureing and a Latin American lottery operator.

As with Schmorak the company is based in Barcelona – a cheaper location to attract tech talent than in the US or Israel (newcomers are onboarded by Nick, the virtual HR manager).

The company operates on a subscription-based model, with the fee depending on the size of business and how many they converse with.

To eliminate the creation of ‘evil’ clones – such as potty-mouthed profane ones – the process is overseen by the company.

“Ideally when we become a billion dollar company with millions of clients, we will have a whole ethics department to think this through.”

With a sub $20 million market capitalisation, UNITH is far from a billion-dollar Nasdaq gorilla, but Schmorak says that smallness is a virtue.

“Other AI companies have hundreds and millions of dollars, we have raised around $10 million since we started,” he says.

“For a company creating pure generative AI with top machine-learning leaders, that is a lot of value for those bucks.”

Meanwhile, the unremittingly pleasant and empathetic Sarah told the hypothetical patient that it was important to take care of his wellness.

But asked how to find a suitable local therapist or help of any description, she channelled Adam Bandt’s ‘Google it, mate’ mantra.

“I don’t have a physical location as I exist solely in the digital realm,” she confessed.

Schmorak says the platform is a work-in-progress, but it will only be a matter of years before it becomes impossible to distinguish a real person from their digital doppelganger.

“It’s early days but we happen to be in the right time and place,” he says.

We have all been warned, but it’s heartening to see such deep fake tech used for good and not evil.

This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decision.

The views, information, or opinions expressed in the interviews in this article are solely those of the interviewees and do not represent the views of Stockhead. Stockhead does not provide, endorse or otherwise assume responsibility for any financial product advice contained in this article.