Swiss bank UBS is using AI models to create video avatars of its analysts to share with clients.
Tapping models from OpenAI and Synthesia, UBS has already built virtual versions of around 35 of its 720 analysts, with plans for a wider deployment, according to the Financial Times.
The analysts visit a studio where Synthesia captures their likeness and voices. Then, a language model reads the analyst's reports, generates a script, and turns it into a realistic AI-generated video.
The avatars are being deployed to help save analysts time and in response to the rising popularity of short-form videos driven by the likes of TikTok.
“There are two drivers for it: the client driver and the efficiency driver...It is helping you scale your video capabilities in a way that clients are asking you for, and ultimately saving you time to do your research and meet with clients," says Scott Solomon, head, global research technology, UBS.
Signing up for an avatar is optional for analysts, while Solomon concedes the technology is not yet perfect, struggling with some accents. However, the bank is looking to ramp up production and put out 5,000 videos a year.
“We publish about 50,000 documents a year, [but video production] has been fixed at about 1,000 a year, because that’s basically our studio capacity. But the number of views on those videos has gone up dramatically,” Solomon tells the FT.