Emerging technologies such as GenAI are profoundly influencing our interactions with the world, seamlessly melding the physical and digital spheres. GenAI presents immense potential across diverse sectors like retail, marketing, healthcare, and education. It enriches user experiences, boosts productivity, and fosters boundless avenues for creativity and innovation.
One great practical application of Gen AI in the tourism and geospatial industries is BAE, a digital human powered by BuzzAR. Due to BAE’s hit in Singapore, the team launched baechat.ai, which is a mobile-friendly “digital friend” for tourists and commuters to navigate around Singapore and more.
BuzzAR has emerged as a trailblazer, not only in technological innovation but also in its commitment to diversity and inclusivity. Led by a team of visionary women, BuzzAR is revolutionising the concept of AI avatars, placing a unique emphasis on building a “female first” community. This bold approach offers users a more personalised and inclusive digital experience through its pioneering initiative, BAE (Buzz’s Amazing Entity), serving as the company’s flagship digital human avatar.
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At the heart of BuzzAR’s innovation lies their proprietary Avatar Engine, a cutting-edge technology that powers their digital human AI products. BAE embodies the ethos of the company’s female-first community, representing a culmination of years of research and development, and offering users a seamless and engaging interaction experience.
Through initiatives like BAE, BuzzAR is not only creating technology that promotes diverse representation in media tech, but it also showcases the excellence of female innovators working in the often male-dominated technology landscape.
Championing diversity and inclusivity with BuzzAR
Similar to real humans, BAE and other digital avatars from BuzzAR are imbued with roles, responsibilities, and knowledge. Today’s BAE is capable of proposing a travel itinerary and assisting travellers in navigating new places. But the vision extends far beyond mere navigation – tomorrow’s BAE will be capable of handling bookings and payments, all powered by advanced AI algorithms developed by BuzzAR.
Customer interaction with BAE is designed to prioritise user delight, with a touch of personality that sets it apart. From witty banter to playful Taylor Swift references, BuzzAR ensures that every interaction leaves a lasting impression, fostering a sense of connection and rapport between users and their digital counterparts.
More than just a digital avatar, BuzzAR CEO and Co-Founder, Bell Beh, explained the company’s vision in an interview with CNA that the goal for BAE is to self-teach, self-learn, and self-evolve through artificial general intelligence (AGI). “In our industry, we are all moving towards AGI; Bae is not there yet, but we are moving her towards that direction.”
One of the key principles driving BuzzAR’s innovation is its commitment to inclusivity and accessibility. Unlike some AI avatar companies that rely on proprietary technologies and closed ecosystems, BuzzAR embraces openness and collaboration. They are agnostic to LLM (Large Language Model) models, leveraging open-source frameworks while also developing their own inferences. BuzzAR has set its sights on creating a compact 7B LLM model tailored specifically to meet the needs of travellers, further enhancing the capabilities of BAE and other digital companions.
But perhaps the most exciting aspect of BuzzAR’s technology is its versatility. Integration possibilities are limited only by imagination, with today’s focus on routing and navigation expanding to include restaurant bookings, payments, and even next-day purchases. The potential applications span industries and use cases, offering endless opportunities for innovation and collaboration.
“Tourism is really just a start. As you can see, BAE offers personalised experiences — she can be infused with, say the financial sector. Tomorrow, she can be integrated into immersive educational platforms. She can be anywhere and she can be omnipresent. And I really hope one day we can have BAE not only in Singapore but in the rest of the world,” shared Bell Beh.
Leveraging synergies between geospatial and generative AI
BuzzAR’s BAE tourism prototype was one of the two winners at the Singapore Land Authority (SLA)’s inaugural OneMap GPT Challenge launched in October 2023. BAE was selected out of 41 entries, comprising companies, academia and individual participants. The prototype was unveiled by SLA, the national geospatial and mapping agency, at the Geo Connect Asia 2024.
The OneMap GPT Challenge was launched with the support of the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) through the Open Innovation Platform (OIP). The challenge sought to explore ways to incorporate AI technologies for innovative solutions on OneMap, the authoritative map of Singapore, extending the benefits of geospatial to a wider community. BAE, the AI travel companion, exemplifies how the combination of artificial intelligence and geospatial mapping visualisation can revolutionise personalised map-based services.
Introducing B.A.E, the AI travel companion
The best way to travel and experience a new country is with a friend. In this case, a digital one. BAE, BuzzAR’s latest development in digital humans, is an AI-powered companion with emotions and expressions, seamlessly interacting with users to offer assistance, recommendations, and engaging conversation.
With BAE, tourists enjoy a seamless and interactive travel experience, from navigational support to personalised recommendations on local attractions, restaurants, hotels, and events.
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Imagine having a companion at your fingertips, catering to your needs and preferences while engaging in casual conversation about your surroundings. BAE leverages OneMap APIs for navigation and utilises open datasets from OneMap and recommendations from the Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) Tourism Information & Services Hub (TIH) platform, alongside insights from OpenAI GPT4’s extensive knowledgebase, to offer tailored tourist itineraries and support queries related to tourism.
BuzzAR envisions these digital humans as the catalyst for the next wave of immersive digital experiences in tourism, hospitality, and real estate.
About Buzz ARVR
BuzzAR – digitising people, places and payments, and transforming customer interactions. BuzzAR is an AR, VR, and AI solutions company developing products that enhance customer experiences for tourism and retail in Singapore and Saudi Arabia. Founded in 2018 by co-founders Bell Beh and Ken Lim, they have since worked with over 10 B2B/B2G clients and partners with over 100 companies in their ecosystems. BuzzAR’s key products include their AR Wayfinder platform, an interactive kiosk that interacts with customers and digitised faces, and their work on LLM-based AI chatbots and self-hosted LLM solutions.
BuzzAR was part of the Singapore Tourism Accelerator in 2020, and the Saudi Tourism Accelerator in 2022 (hosted by Singapore Tourism Board and Saudi Tourism Authority respectively), as well as the recent Google AI Trailblazers programme.
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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by BuzzAR
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