Source: SenseAI
AI Native Product Analysis
1. Product: Delphi
2. Founder: Dara Ladjevardian
3. Entrepreneurial Background: Founder Ladjevardian previously worked as a software engineer at C3AI, an enterprise AI software application platform company, and later founded the AI-based shopping assistant service Friday, which he then sold. Delphi's AI digital cloning service was initially created by Ladjevardian to reconnect with his deceased grandfather.
4. Product Introduction: Allows users to generate AI chatbots that mimic the user's personality, writing, or speaking style by uploading communication records, including emails, chat logs (Notion, Twitter), YouTube videos, etc.
5. Development Progress: Delphi attracted over 100 individuals to participate in testing during the internal testing phase. It is not fully open to the public yet, and users need to apply for the whitelist on the official website to experience it.
Official website: www.withdelphi.com/
This article has a total of 2149 words and takes about 5 minutes to read carefully.
The popular science fiction TV series "Black Mirror" has an episode called "Be Right Back," which aired 10 years ago and depicted a woman who cloned her deceased boyfriend's personality through a service, but later felt alienated by the experience. The service reconstructed his personality by analyzing his social media and text messages.
At the time in 2013, the episode seemed like fiction but on the edge of believability—after all, many people had already left a large amount of digital communication records through smartphones and computers.
Today, this story has become at least digitally possible. A startup company named Delphi, founded in the United States but named after the ancient Greek prophet and sage, announced that it has received a $2.7 million investment and launched a new AI digital cloning service.
By uploading as few as 4 or as many as thousands of files containing your communication content—such as emails, chat logs, and even YouTube videos or audio files like podcasts or voicemails—Delphi will create an AI chatbot that mimics the user's personality, writing, or speaking style. This feature is also available in voice form through a collaboration with the voice cloning startup ElevenLabs.
Users can then deploy their AI clones on websites, Slack, or even connect them to a phone number to answer calls and converse with callers on behalf of the user.
Delphi also attempts to reconstruct unique thought processes in the user's clones, providing responses it deems appropriate to specific prompts as much as possible.
Delphi's founder and CEO Dara Ladjevardian told VentureBeat in an interview, "We are certainly more optimistic than 'Black Mirror.' We want to see the optimistic side of this technology rather than the fearful side."
Some well-known investors are optimistic about Delphi's work: the new round of financing was led by Keith Rabois, CEO of OpenStore and general partner of Founders Fund (a well-known venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel). Lux Capital, Xfund, MVP Ventures, and SaxeCap also participated in the investment. Other angel investors who have invested in Delphi include the founders of AngelList, EightSleep, and Soylent.
Rabois himself has already cloned himself.
01. Clone Anyone, from Celebrities to Loved Ones
Not interested in cloning yourself? Delphi can also be used to clone others: currently, the company does not restrict users from cloning anyone without permission.
Want to clone your ex and restore your relationship, at least in part? If you obtain and upload their written materials or speech samples, you can do so.
Want to clone the late Steve Jobs or the living Elon Musk? If you extract data from the public internet, such as through interviews from news agencies or YouTube videos, Delphi also allows you to do so. Delphi has even cloned the legendary investor Warren Buffett for internal use.
Ladjevardian told VentureBeat, "If Buffett tells me, 'Dara, delete this,' I will delete it. I will respect him."
In fact, Delphi has already cloned many famous figures with its AI software—Steve Jobs; Jeff Bezos, Robert Oppenheimer, and all living and deceased U.S. presidents, as well as other prominent figures.
Although Delphi previously allowed users to converse with these clones in chatbot format during the testing phase, they no longer seem to offer this publicly.
As for others cloning loved ones, exes, or impersonating celebrities for deceptive or criminal purposes, Ladjevardian admitted to VentureBeat, "We don't have measures to prevent this, which is something we have to address as we scale."
Ladjevardian told VentureBeat that Delphi has received deletion requests from well-known doctor and podcast host Peter Attia and has accordingly deleted unauthorized AI clones.
02. Technology Behind Delphi AI Clones
Digital AI cloning studio created by Delphi's founding designer Martin Amiri
Delphi's digital cloning software originated from second-generation Iranian immigrant Ladjevardian's sincere desire to reconnect with his deceased grandfather, who was an entrepreneur in Iran before the 1979 revolution that transformed the government from a secular monarchy to a theocracy.
When OpenAI released its large language model GPT-3 in the summer of 2020, Ladjevardian was working as a software engineer at C3 AI, an enterprise AI software application platform company.
"I thought at the time, 'Wow, this is really going to change everything,'" Ladjevardian recalled to VentureBeat. "So I should dedicate myself to this, because I think there will be a lot of opportunities here."
Ladjevardian left his job at C3 AI and founded his first company, Friday, an AI-based shopping assistant company that provided product recommendations in conversational form.
"At that time, he was reading a book about his grandfather, which was inspiring, but he was more eager to truly converse with this man, inquire about his experiences, and use him as a role model," Ladjevardian said.
Ladjevardian used GPT-3 and open-source embeddings—information clusters used by AI to form meaning and associations—"to clone his grandfather using his books, seeing him as a personal mentor to build the startup company," Ladjevardian said.
This experiment was effective on a personal level: Ladjevardian sold the startup for a profit, moved to Miami to work for Rabois's OpenStore, where he was mentored by Rabois, and continued to develop the technology for the digital AI clones that ultimately helped him create Delphi.
03. Use Cases and Revenue Model
Interview with Delphi's AI cloning founder
Using AI to create clones of personal mentors is a good idea for those seeking this guidance in life, but how can it be a scalable business?
Ladjevardian and Delphi's employees are confident that this software does indeed have a market demand for those who already make a living by imparting knowledge to others—such as coaches, thought leaders, creators, and business leaders.
"Our focus is to help coaches, creators, experts, politicians, CEOs, and others—those with high knowledge leverage—scale themselves and make themselves useful to others," Ladjevardian said.
Delphi has not yet publicly disclosed its pricing structure as it is still continuously adjusting and iterating to find the best way to profit. However, Ladjevardian did state that the company is considering charging a monthly subscription fee for hosting people's digital clones and their usage by the clones' audience, with additional charges for voice functionality and dedicated phone calls.
Over 100 people have created their digital clones in Delphi's private testing phase, including Grammy Award-winning music producer Illmind, whose clone provides text-based responses and a range of professional and life guidance.
"Our focus is to capture a person's thinking and convey it through text and voice," Ladjevardian explained.
Ladjevardian has also cloned himself and even had a voice conversation with his clone.
"I called myself and talked to myself for 10 minutes, which was strange but also interesting," he said.
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