Google has discreetly purchased Alter, a Twitter-backed AI avatar firm that was once known as Facemoji, previously this year for $100 million. The purchase of Alter was completed about two months ago, an unnamed source informed TechCrunch. While Google only confirmed this acquisition last week, it did not provide exact details or the purchase price and has shied away from publicizing the move. The acquisition is also partly confirmed given that Alter’s CEO has updated his LinkedIn profile to depict that he is engaged in a new role at Google Avatars.
Google has made significant investments in its AI technology in recent years. The company is putting AI at the heart of its line of products, which range from language learning models to image producers. For example, with Search, Google is employing AI not only to help customers filter out undesirable results, but also to support those coping with personal issues.
Google is incorporating AI processing units into its hardware, such as the recently unveiled Pixel 7, to improve the phone’s ability to interpret photographs or translate speech. The company’s short-form video platform, YouTube Shorts, which was created to compete with TikTok, is giving Google’s social media ambitions a fresh lease on life. Sometime in the future, Google Avatars might be integrated with Shorts.
The AI-based company Alter, with offices in the US and the Czech Republic, intends to create avatars of both individuals and the clothes and accessories they wear. One can, for instance, purchase an NFT of a fancy purse to adorn their avatar. The metaverse and video games may incorporate this technology. CEO Robin Raszka claimed in an interview with TechCrunch from last year that people only want to brag and that “ultimately it boils down to ego” and “how you show off that you have a Birkin bag, avatars on Twitter are the best real estate for this.”
While it hasn’t been touted as such, this may very well be Google’s foray into the metaverse space and the growing interest in VR and AR applications.
