Alexandru Voica, head of corporate affairs at Synthesia, a video-generation startup, sent a link to a new member of their PR team this summer. The link led to an interactive virtual avatar of Voica, trained to answer common press questions about the company. Synthesia, originally based in the U.K., is one of the leading digital avatar startups, alongside companies like D-ID, HeyGen, and Colossyan. The company recently reached a $4 billion valuation and reported crossing $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) last year. Synthesia allows enterprises to build interactive training videos using AI avatars and recently launched a product called Roleplay Sessions, enabling employees to practice sales pitches with AI avatars that respond and score their responses. Synthesia invited the journalist to its new office space in New York. During the visit, the journalist was offered the chance to create their own AI avatar. The process involved entering a mini film studio within the office, where photos were taken and a two-minute voice recording was captured. The journalist consented to the creation of the avatars, resulting in a personal avatar (which reads a given script) and two interactive avatars (which can respond and interact), with and without glasses. The interactive avatar was trained on the journalist's story about why venture-backed startups commit more fraud than non-VC-backed startups and will only answer questions related to that story. The technology used includes Synthesia's own video and voice models, with options for customers to use models from other labs like Cartesia, ElevenLabs, Google, or OpenAI. Enterprises can also choose to host their avatars on any cloud or pay Synthesia to host them. The journalist tested the avatars, noting that the personal avatar's voice was accurate and did not pick up any hoarseness from the audio sample. Friends found the interactive avatar both interesting and creepy, though the voice did not closely resemble the journalist's and the likeness was not as good as the personal avatar. The journalist's mother called it "amazing," though she and the journalist's father tried to ask it questions "only they would know" about the journalist, which the model redirected to the venture fraud story. The experience raised questions about the future of journalism, such as whether people would be comfortable with news presented by an avatar. Some investors expressed immediate skepticism, while others were uncertain. The journalist noted that trust is a crucial part of journalism and does not seem like something that could be outsourced to AI. Outside of journalism, the idea of cloning oneself could be appealing, allowing for continuous availability to answer questions without the need for catching up on work after a holiday or vacation. The journalist expressed mixed feelings about having their own digital twin, noting the initial novelty but also examining the avatar closely after it stopped talking, waiting for it to blink, smile, or say something new. The journalist predicted that Gen Z may not get used to digital twins, finding them more sci-fi than realistic. However, they found digital avatars less jarring than humanoids, as they can always log off if things get strange.