TikTok Could Soon Be Flooded with AI Avatars in Ads
TikTok is set to introduce new advertising tools featuring AI-powered “digital avatars” that brands can use to promote their products. These avatars can be programmed to say virtually anything, enabling brands to create content in multiple languages.
On June 17, TikTok announced the expansion of its Symphony ad suite with “stock avatars” and an “AI dubbing” feature. These tools are designed to help brands create and localize their content more efficiently.
The stock avatars are created from video footage of real actors, licensed for commercial use. Brands can select an AI-powered voice and accent to read out their scripts, which are then dubbed onto the avatar. A demonstration video shows that this text-to-speech tool can dub over the actors with voices in multiple languages, attempting to mimic the mouth movements of the spoken language. The script can even be generated by AI.
The tool currently supports ten languages and dialects, including English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. It detects the input language and dubs it into the target language chosen by the user.
TikTok Stars to Get “Custom Avatars”
TikTok also plans to introduce “custom avatars” that replicate the likeness of content creators and brand spokespeople. These custom avatars will have the same multi-language capabilities as the stock avatars and are being tested by TikTok’s creator community.
For transparency, TikTok will automatically label videos created with its AI tools as AI-generated. A demonstration video shows that these labels appear as small boxes in the bottom corner of the screen.
The Technology and Its Limitations
The AI avatars, translation, and dubbing features are currently in their beta versions and available to a limited number of users through a waitlist. Despite their capabilities, these AI clones are not perfect. The video demonstration reveals that the mouth movements and gestures do not always match what is being spoken, a phenomenon known as the “uncanny valley.”
TikTok’s venture into AI avatars follows Meta’s introduction of an AI chatbot in September 2023, which featured the likenesses of celebrities like Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, and Tom Brady, managing their Facebook and Instagram accounts.
These advancements suggest a growing trend in the use of AI-generated content across social media platforms, enhancing the ways brands and creators can engage with their audiences.
