MeetKai Launches New Room Scanning Technology and Metaverse Builder • businessroundups.org

Not everyone believes the metaverse – social, VR-centric worlds – has staying power. But MeetKai is one of the steadfast optimists. Founded in 2018, the startup initially focused on conversational AI, aiming to build advanced, best-in-class speech recognition and speech synthesis technology. It soon broadened its focus and introduced products to help developers build components of metaverse worlds, including “intelligent” NPCs and (less exciting) advertisements.

This year at the Consumer Electronics Show 2023, MeetKai is launching several new platforms aimed at metaverse creators and users, including a way to digitize 3D spaces and buildings using any internet-connected device with a camera.

The 3D digitization service, called MeetKai Reality, can bring a variety of real-world objects and spaces into the metaverse, MeetKai says. After tapping a camera-equipped device to record a few seconds of video, users upload the footage to MeetKai Reality, which renders the captured space in VR.

While not new — platforms like Coohom, Matterport, and even Zillow were already able to render spaces from photos — MeetKai CEO and co-founder James Kaplan claims that MeetKai Reality is the first photo-to-rendering solution tailored for metaverse use cases. “We want to achieve the same cost and time savings for anyone who wants to build in the metaverse,” he said in a statement, noting the potential applications in real estate, interior design, architecture, engineering and retail.

MeetKai’s second new product, MeetKai Metaverse Editor, stands out a little more. It allows users with no coding experience to build structures and spaces in the metaverse, optionally collaborating with others in real time. Metaverse build tools exist, to be sure – startups like Tripolygon provide them. But not all are no-code and some remain vaporwareemphasizes Kaplan currently.

“MeetKai’s metaverse tools can be used à la carte… We want to unlock the same cost and time savings for anyone who wants to build in the metaverse,” said Kaplan.

To round out the new product suite, MeetKai is launching MeetKai Cloud AI, which allows developers to plug a cloud-powered voice assistant into an existing virtual environment. Kaplan claims that these assistants – which take the form of avatars that can converse on any number of predefined topics – have “real-time reasoning” (although the jury is out on that) and can “use any kind of multimedia to instantly communicating with end users.”

Going forward, MeetKai plans to develop its own AI language system along the lines of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which it expects will vastly improve the quality of conversations with its avatars.

“I am very pleased to see our company provide the world’s leading metaverse and AI technology products, which set a new mark and raise the technology bar in a highly competitive industry,” said MeetKai Co-Founder and Executive Chairman , Weili Dai, in a press release. “Our vision and mission for MeetKai is to bring these opportunities to the masses by providing breakthrough and affordable solutions accessible through web browsers and any device – such as phones, tablets, computers, big screens, not just VR – anywhere in the world available for more impact and a better life for everyone.”

MeetKai competes with hundreds of companies for dominance in the metaverse space, but it seems to be holding its own, claiming that over 50 million people are actively using its technology. Recently, the startup announced a deal with the Los Angeles Chargers to develop new in-stadium and home experiences, including an “AI-based” locker room tour.

To date, MeetKai has raised over $20 million in venture capital (by VentureBeat) and has about 40 employees.