Episode
Avatars Are the UI of the Internet: Why Every App, Game, Corp Will Have An AI Persona ft. Akash Nigam
- Podcast
- The AI XR Podcast.
- Published
- Jun 19, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3393
- Processing state
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- https://shows.acast.com/this-week-in-xr-podcast/episodes/avatars-are-the-ui-of-the-internet-why-every-app-game-corp-w
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Summary
Akash Nigam has been building Genies since 2017 with a conviction that avatars will be the visual layer of the internet. As CEO of Genies , he's assembled IP partners including the NBA, MLB, Sanrio, and Kakao, with more major studios and agencies set to announce before the end of May. The pitch: every app, game, website, and celebrity is going to have an AI personality. Genies wants to be the framework that gives all of those personalities a face. What separates Genies is portability and scale. A character that took eight weeks in 2021 now takes ten minutes. Staying stylized rather than photorealistic isn't just aesthetic — it's what got Hollywood to the table. Talent doesn't want deepfakes. They want a Genie: trained on private IP data, capable of one-on-one fan relationships that make Instagram feel thin. AI XR News: Tim Cook stepped aside as Apple CEO with hardware chief John Ternus taking over. Humanoid robots ran a half marathon in Beijing while a Sony robot defeated professional table tennis players, opening a conversation about Chinese robotics capabilities and AI data infiltration risks the US is still underestimating. Key Moments: [00:06:45] Tim Cook steps aside: what the Apple leadership transition signals about wearable AI [00:12:00] Humanoid robots and table tennis: China's robotics flex [00:13:00] The data infiltration argument: open-source risk and a warning for the US [00:24:00] The IP land grab: NBA, MLB, Sanrio, Kakao, Naver Webtoon [00:28:00] From photo to avatar in 10 minutes: how Genies' generation pipeline scaled [00:32:00] Why Instagram feels thin and how Genies enables one-on-one fan relationships [00:49:00] 80 people, $150M raised, and why Bob Iger sees Genies as the future of Disney If AI personalities are going to be everywhere, what do they l…