NTT Com kick-starts customer-service demo using digital human with Toei, NTT QONOQ

KUALA LUMPUR, March 20 (Bernama) -- NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), Toei Company Ltd and NTT QONOQ INC jointly announced the immediate launch of a customer-service demonstration using a digital human to communicate with people.

In the demonstration, a realistic digital human named “CONN”, will interact with people visiting NTT Com's OPEN HUB Park virtual space.

CONN is created by combining human-like visuals generated by Toei Zukun Laboratory’s digital human technology and human-like personalities (behaviour and voice) developed with NTT Human Informatics Laboratories' body motion-generation and voice-synthesis artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

According to NTT Com in a statement, the results will be used to determine the possibility of using digital humans as new points of contact for commercial services.

CONN was developed from the faces of nine real people, or "catalysts”, who were scanned with the latest version of LightStage from Toei Zukun Laboratory, based on which a realistic human (digital human) was created using computer graphics.

For CONN's personality, including behaviour and voice, the motion-capture data and voice data of the catalysts were used to train an AI engine developed with NTT Human Informatics Laboratories, which reproduced the behaviour and voice characteristics of real people in CONN.

In the final step, proprietary software developed by NTT Com converted the feature points of the captured facial and personality data to 3DCG. The software then generated digital motion and voice based on a learned programme.

When people visit the OPEN HUB Park, CONN will communicate with them in a natural style, exhibiting various facial expressions, behaviours and voice tones, as if it were actually thinking, while guiding people through the various zones of the virtual park.

The three companies will use learnings from the demonstration to explore opportunities for using digital humans within their own companies and in solutions for customers in a wide range of industries and sectors.

CONN will serve as a digital catalyst to deliver customer services in the OPEN HUB for Smart World, based on which possibilities will be explored for using digital humans, developed mainly for entertainment so far, as new points of contact for corporate services.

-- BERNAMA