Building tomorrow’s Disney
All great companies are founded upon a secret. Our secret is this:
Virtual characters powered by generative AI are going to be the Mickey Mouses, the Disney, Pixar, Marvel icons of the future. AI characters have the unique ability to actively engage with their audience, be available 24/7, and be personalized to a far greater degree than any non-AI character.
AI is obviously going to fundamentally shift entertainment, media, performance, live performance, music, etc. Such areas bring much enrichment, value, and joy to people's lives.
However, you can't have a performance without a performer. You can't have a story without characters.
Similar to today, where a minority of studios, artists, companies, and brands produce the characters that receive the majority of people's attention and love, our future imbued with generative AI will follow the same principle.
Only a few companies will best understand how to leverage these AI technologies.
Aniverse's core value will lie not within its technology in terms of code or hardware, but its deep understanding (taste!) of what resonates with audiences emotionally and visually.
This understanding will fuel the development of memorable, lovable, imperfect, yet amazing characters. Aniverse will design, implement, scale, and deploy characters that captivate hearts and minds across the globe. These characters will live and travel among stories that receive the most attention, love, and grace.
To bring these AI characters to life, Aniverse will create a platform for them to initially "live" on. This platform must serve as an immersive and interactive storytelling medium, featuring AI-powered text and image generation that responds dynamically to user input.
VTubers, virtual YouTubers who use anime avatars instead of their real faces, represent the perfect transitional stage between traditional content creators and fully autonomous AI characters. Despite making up only 0.4% of active channels on YouTube and Twitch, VTubers command an impressive 5.7% of total viewer hours watched, showcasing the immense potential of virtual characters to captivate and retain audiences.
Aniverse's initial strategy is to partner with established VTubers, leveraging generative AI to clone and scale their characters. By integrating VTubers into the platform, Aniverse will offer them new avenues for fan engagement and monetization, while simultaneously expanding its own userbase. The data and insights gathered from these partnerships will be instrumental in developing Aniverse's own lineup of AI VTubers.
These fully autonomous AI VTubers will become the core IP of Aniverse, akin to Disney or Marvel's iconic cast. Designed to forge deep emotional connections with fans across a variety of media formats and revenue streams, they represent a defensible moat in an era where generative AI is commoditizing content creation.