Meet the team behind Marvella, Bangladesh's first AI influencer

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has basically become a buzzword, and no other industry across the globe has perhaps been more influenced by it than the entertainment industry. From voice actors to content creators, AI has become a modern-day sensation.

Bangladesh saw its first AI influencer come to life this month. Created by 'The Wider Collective' in collaboration with 'The Marvel – Be You', the AI influencer, named 'Marvella', has already become a countrywide sensation, garnering over a million views in a few days of its launch.

Using AI technology to create a narrative-driven character is a fairly ambitious initiative. The West, as well as some Asian countries, have created an ecosystem where AI-generated personalities co-exist with their real-world counterparts, sharing traits with them.

These virtual influencers transcend the limitations of human creators, maintaining a relentless online presence, and captivating followers with their consistently innovative output.

'The Wider Collective' set out to create 'Marvella' with such an ambition: to create something that has not been created yet in Bangladesh. 

"The motivation was very simple for us. We saw the kind of potential AI possessed to be turned into something like this, and how the world was progressing with it. So we created Marvella, because we could," said Ehfaz Rezwan, co-founder of The Wider Collective.

Before 'Marvella', the creators worked on similar projects, one of which was an AI music video. Being associated with a diverse set of people with multiple expertise, they often came together for various projects, calling themselves 'The Wider Collective' (TWC).

"We were of course inspired by the West. We saw how AI content creators were becoming a thing in the western countries and we wanted to do something similar now that the technology and cost has become more affordable," said Mehrab Anwar, co-founder and chief architect of TWC.

Creating an online personality, especially an influencer with characteristics like a real human being, comes with challenges. 

"At TWC we're all very driven individuals," Ehfaz said. "I think our biggest strength is that we learn whatever we need to, in order to accomplish a goal. Like, of course we have our experience, but this entire process was new for us," he added.

The inspiration for Marvella was directly derived from another American AI influencer/content creator/singer named 'Miquela', a fictional and virtual American social media personality. Created by Trevor McFedries and Sara DeCou, the character was given the background of a Brazilian-American 19-year old girl. 

'Miquela' is rather popular among the music community in the West, with her own YouTube channel and other social media.

'Marvella' follows the same route. She was created to be a 22-year old graphic designer with interests such as travelling, sketching, and browsing social media. Just like 'Miquela', 'Marvella' also has her own social media page on Instagram, @ai.marvella. 

This sounds all very easy to track, but the challenge is all too real. 'Miquela' has 40 people running those accounts, but 'Marvella' will have a smaller team for starters.

The team put in hours of rigorous research, referencing and brainstorming in the project. They experimented with different mediums to bring 'Marvella' to life and settled on a few for now. Of course that will change, because 'Marvella', just like a human being, is designed to be ever evolving and changing.

The experience of the team played a crucial role here. One has to understand that creating just an AI avatar with algorithms to exert a personality is not enough. Especially when that AI personality has to take the shape of an influencer.

"Explaining the technicalities is still a bit difficult," said Ehfaz. "We did not just create Marvella, we had to create a whole system through which we are going to simulate her influencer personality over and over again." 

They gathered what they knew and what they did not know into one place. That was the baseline for creating 'Marvella'.

Being an influencer is not just about entertaining. Perhaps it might be a bit too much to ask the same from Marvella just now. But the creators are hoping that 'Marvella' would actually represent causes and be the voice of her followers as time goes on. They also expect her to be an international phenomenon in the future.

There has been some controversy surrounding the AI influencer, especially regarding her face. But the response so far, apart from that, has been very positive.