New Delhi [India], April 11 (ANI): In a groundbreaking blend of technology and culture, Ikonz Studios has introduced a lifelike AI-powered digital avatar of cricket legend Sourav Ganguly, integrated into a Holographic Extended Reality (HXR) device.

Speaking with ANI on Friday Ikonz Studios founder and CEO Abhinav Verma Kalidindi explained how the avatar not only mirrors Ganguly's voice, expressions, and gestures but also allows real-time, interactive conversations with users. The innovation was officially unveiled with Ganguly himself present at the launch, marking a major milestone in immersive fan engagement and AI-driven experiences.

Speaking with ANI, Abhinav Verma Kalidindi, founder and CEO of Ikonz Studios said, 'Ikonz Studios basically specializes in recreating a human digital twin of an existing personality. That's what we've done with Saurav Ganguly. We've recreated his avatar in the digital form, which speaks like him, moves like him, emotes like him, walks like him. And now once we've created the avatar, we have innovation in the system. It's called a holographic extended reality device.'

'That's what it means, HXR, where it's a holographic interface wherein Saurav Ganguly's avatar will be present. That is what we unveiled yesterday. So the device itself in which Saurav's avatar was there and that can be made interactive. That's why we call it AI. So you can go up to Dada and ask him questions about things that he knows and he'll respond back to you. Like he look, I mean, exactly the way you would think Dada would. So that's what happened yesterday. So we had a few things happen and Mr. Ganguly was also there to unveil it. So it was quite an exciting day,' he added.

When asked about the idea behind the innovation, Abhinav said that Ikonz was always at the intersection of culture and technology, and associated with none bigger than Mr Bachchan himself.

'He talks about culture and cutting across cultures across India from many, many decades. So, I mean, we are very fortunate and we are very lucky that he decided that, he will work with us and then we were able to create his avatar. So the genesis of what was very simple is that we wanted to immortalize a persona that has been so iconic for so long. That is where the name also comes from, Like Ikonz. So we'll be working with iconic figures across industries, like not only films or entertainment now, sports. And now we'll go into music, not only in India, but globally. But working with Mr Bachchan has been an experience of a lifetime. That we're very proud that we were able to partner with him and actually work with him to be able to create his and create a vision of him and bring it to life,' he said.

'And we've been fortunate to be able to even use that avatar in a banking setting as well. So we've had a full success story very recently as of December that we were able to use Mr Bachchan's avatar inside the HXR device. And that device is placed across 10 locations all across the country, like in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Gujarat, everywhere, Hyderabad, where you can walk into the bank branches at IDFC First Bank and you are able to interact with Mr Bachchan about banking. So Mr Bachchan will walk you through the banking products and he'll tell you what are the best features of the bank. And you can interact with him. And eventually, you can do a transaction, you can do an entire servicing in the bank while you're talking to him. So it's quite exciting. So the idea is to bring these iconic personalities to life through AI in such ways that they could engage with their fans like never before in a one-to-one basis,' Abhinav further said.

He said that till now, communication is always one-to-many.

'But now with our technology, fans and consumers are able to relate and engage with their favorite personalities on a one-to-one basis. And for businesses, we are able to create a guardrailed version of Mr Bachchan who knows banking lingo, who knows banking knowledge. So it just doesn't start and end with this creation of the avatar. We create the brain as well behind the avatar. And that brain is created through a system called an AI agentic system where we can fine-tune the knowledge of the brain based on the brand we are trying to bring it to. If Mr Bachchan is present in a banking setting, it will be very different versus Bachchan or Ganguly being present in a retail or an airport setting. So we can fine-tune and granularize the brain so that the interaction is on point. And of course, it's very personal and engaging',' he said.

On planning making it a one to one experience for people, he said that he thought currently they were going to enterprises first.

'But if the demand does come up that consumers would like to have such an experience at home based on how it performs in the retail or in the public setting. Right now currently all of our deployments and plans of deployments are in commercial spaces. It could be within malls or airports or banks or jewelry stores or retail stores etc. Public destinations where consumers do interact. But if there is a demand I think we will see and we did get some requests of such an experience being present at home. But currently the plans are definitely more enterprise focused,' he said.

On plans to make AI Avatars of politicians, he said, 'We've not been requested to, so we don't know yet. We've done Bachchan, we've done Ganguly now so we've actually tied up with an international talent agency which we haven't announced yet, so we're waiting to announce that. They represent about 60 percent of the global stars in music, entertainment, sports like all the top ones, so that'll be coming out next month so we're very busy and we've not been requested, so we don't know. as long as, you know, if the request comes through I think we can answer it at that point'.'

On planning to explore possibility in defence or security sector, he said that he thought that the knowledge can be anything in this and the avatar could be of anyone. 'So if there is a use case where a knowledge system is used to be deployed in any form of setting, it can be deployed as long as there is another right guardrail so we've got the technology, we've got the expertise so I think if the use case does come and present itself to us we should be thinking about it, yeah',' he said.

AI having its disadvantage as well, he was asked about his plans to work on avoiding any kind of misuse.

He said, 'I think we usually are on the right side of things, right? So, we go to these personalities, you know, talk them through the benefits of doing a partnership with us, because we basically will be the one source of truth and a licensed authority partnered with them to be able to bring these digital AI versions to life, where we can watermark these assets. And everyone knows that if there is a watermark, which can be potentially checked through technology, that this is an authentic source of information. This is how we are proposing to the personalities or icons that we are interacting with.'

'That way, you know, people know to judge between real information and not real information. And of course, we are always working on the segment. It's part of our journey. And I think AI will help in identification of false versus true as well. So, in terms of information, at least when it comes to generated personality-driven AI, because they are highly popular. So, I think definitely technologies do exist. And I think they need to be integrated in the right way to be able to know what is real and what is not. And of course, I think during our process of like, you know, building these systems, I think as we keep growing and we keep bringing on more personalities, I think the other side of what you just said about protection will become more and more important,' he added. (ANI)