I cloned myself 🤡

Say hello to my digital twin

This week saw another big step in the AI world. Heygen, the app that allows you to make yourself speak 20 other languages (in your own voice and with proper lip movements) has now made their tool "Instant Avatar" available. I uploaded a video of myself speaking in Dutch for two minutes yesterday. After I upload that video on their platform, my avatar is ready and I can make myself say anything I want. The video below is an example. I never spoke that text myself. I just entered a text from Unilin. A client of ours.

Is this usable in the real world? Sure, it can speed up processes for simple video shoots. The person you need is cloned and no longer needs to show up. Is there room for abuse? Absolutely. But Heygen is doing their best to combat that. A video of Donald Trump was recognized as “celebrity face” and I couldn't work with it. But Heygen certainly won't know Jean-Luc Dehaene. So give me 2 minutes of footage and I'll make a video in which he says how important respect for the NV-A is. 🥲

Read, watch, listen and learn 💥

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” We read up a lot on trends in social media, AI, creativity & innovation and we are always happy to share articles with you:

• Pinterest begins testing a ‘body type ranges’ tool to make searches more inclusive 💕

• Meta apparently rejects period care ads for being adult or political

• People Get Their News from TikTok. 👀

• Another year, another Contagious trend report! 🔥

• UK school pupils ‘using AI to create indecent imagery of other children’ 😭

• China Tried to Keep Kids Off Social Media. Now the Elderly Are Hooked. There are now elderly Chinese influencers whose fans number beyond their own demographic. Many more consider themselves content creators, if not for money, for their own enjoyment and mental well-being. They don’t want to be forgotten. 💕

• The openness of talking to strangers – and the intimate stories they share 🙏🏽

• TikTok Launches New ‘Creative Cards’ To Provide Content Inspiration

• Snapchat+ has added a feature called AI Mode that generates entirely new Snaps with the power of your words 🌧

• The entire concept of Google’s .meme domain names feels disrespectful of meme culture in general. It doesn’t consider what memes are: ownerless ideas and jokes that originate organically on the internet.

• Who decides which countries get which crisp flavours? Some of the things I found out made my jaw drop. 🍪

• Founder's Friend! A bot for you to talk through the problems you can't discuss with investors or employees.

• An agency created an AI model who earns up to $11,000 a month because it was tired of influencers 'who have egos':

Aitana López is racking up fans on Instagram and Fanvue.

Hurae work: FTI Kortrijk 👀

From March 16 to 21, Kortrijk will host "FTI by Hangar K," the first edition of the innovative city festival that aims to bring everyone together around technology and innovation. Starting point will be Buda Island, LandMarck and Hangar K in Kortrijk. A project that is very close to our hearts because we were allowed to think along with Hurae about the strategy and will soon start building a number of fun experiences around Edtech. I'm also personally looking forward hard to Club Of The Future. What will that club look like? The venue is already fantastic, the acts too (Amber Broos, Goose)

Some of our studies that will be created soon

Hurae - Non-traditional marketing campaigns 🛝

What we do: exploring new ways of marketing through the art of play. We play around, we innovate on social, we make memes, we create experiences. If not for your brand, just for ourselves. Playing works. Let’s play together! By the way: The Hurae newsletter now has 4000+ subscribers and we have an open rate of 50%! 💕