FAQs

About Us FAQs

  • Captivation AI is a UK technology company founded by entrepreneur Gareth Hughes. The team combines experience across technology, AI, product, design and media, with a particular focus on creating engaging consumer-facing digital experiences.

  • Captivation AI was founded in 2023. The technology evolved from earlier work in food discovery and interactive video menus before developing into the broader conversational AI and real-time Avatar platform used today.

  • Captivation AI is a UK company with offices in London, close to Waterloo station.

  • Our mission is to make human-like interfaces practical at mass-market scale, giving businesses and AI platforms an affordable way to add a face, voice and richer visual communication to digital conversations.

  • Captivation is privately funded and is speaking with investors interested in supporting the company's next stage of growth. Investment enquiries can be made directly through the Captivation team.

Platform FAQs

  • Instead of continuously generating and streaming a new video, Captivation uses pre-created visual assets that are delivered to the browser and brought to life using lightweight real-time instructions from the Captivation Platform. Voice, text, lip sync, gestures and expressions are synchronised as the conversation happens.

  • Browser rendering dramatically reduces the amount of server-side video generation, compute and bandwidth required. This helps Captivation deliver faster connections, lower operating costs and a lighter technical footprint than continuously streamed AI video.

  • Turning LLM text into voice is one of the more compute-intensive and expensive parts of a speaking Avatar service. Captivation can match around 80% of response phrases to audio already generated for a particular voice and reuse the stored file instead of making a new text-to-speech request. New speech is still generated dynamically when required.

  • The Media Window allows relevant products, images, video, graphics, maps, comparisons, forms and other visual content to appear alongside the Avatar and in sync with the conversation. Captivation's Media Trigger Service selects content according to the conversation and what the user is viewing.

  • The platform is designed to be LLM agnostic. Different AI models and services can therefore be used for different tasks, allowing Captivation to optimise for the required combination of capability, speed and cost.

  • Yes. Captivation is designed to work through common modern web browsers across smartphones, tablets and PCs without requiring the end user to download an application.

  • Captivation AI has filed patent applications covering several aspects of its technology and platform.

General FAQs

  • Captivation AI brings chatbots and AI agents to life with real-time speaking Avatars. Our technology combines voice, lip sync, gestures, expressions and synchronised visual content to create a more natural and engaging alternative to traditional text-only AI.

  • A SuperAgent combines conversational AI with a speaking Avatar, voice, business knowledge, rich media and the ability to take action. It can answer questions, recommend products, show images and video, add products to a basket, arrange meetings or hand a conversation over to a human when needed.

  • Most real-time Avatar platforms continuously generate video on a server and stream it to the user. Captivation uses a different approach: lightweight instructions are sent to the browser, where the Avatar is rendered locally. This reduces compute and bandwidth requirements and allows Captivation to deliver faster connections, expressive gestures and costs that can be up to 90% lower than conventional real-time video Avatar services.

  • Captivation can be used by businesses, developers and AI vendors. Developers can use Captivation Inside to add a face and voice to an existing chatbot or AI agent, while businesses can deploy complete SuperAgent solutions for ecommerce, sales, support and other customer-facing applications.

  • No. Captivation Inside is designed to work with your existing chatbot, LLM, AI agent, tools and workflows. Your AI continues to generate the intelligence and responses; Captivation turns those responses into an expressive visual and spoken experience.

  • Yes. Captivation offers a free Captivation Inside developer trial with credits for about 30 to 40 minutes of conversation, subject to availability. Shopify stores can also request a free SuperAgent trial with credits for 50 customer conversations.

Captivation Solutions FAQs

  • A SuperAgent combines an Avatar, conversational AI, voice, business knowledge, media and actions in one customer experience. It can talk and listen, understand what a visitor needs, show relevant information and take useful next steps.

  • Traditional chatbots are usually based around text. A SuperAgent adds a speaking Avatar, voice, gestures, visual communication and the ability to take actions, creating an experience that is closer to interacting with an informed salesperson, support agent or guide.

  • Sales SuperAgents can welcome visitors, understand what they are looking for, answer product or service questions, recommend and compare options, show relevant media, suggest complementary products and help move the customer towards a purchase, enquiry or meeting.

  • Support SuperAgents can answer questions, explain products and services, provide instructions, demonstrate solutions visually and guide customers through common problems. Where appropriate, they can escalate the conversation to a human colleague.

  • Yes. Depending on the integration, SuperAgents can interact with website functionality and external services. Examples include adding products to a basket, checking information, raising support tickets, arranging callbacks and booking meetings.

  • Yes. SuperAgents can work with approved product, service and business information supplied from websites, product catalogues, documents such as PDFs and connected systems. Shopify product information can be accessed directly through the store integration.

  • Yes. The handover process can be configured around the business. Options can include raising a support ticket, requesting a callback, booking a call or meeting, initiating a call to a support number, or directing the customer to a human support channel.

SuperAgents for Shopify and Ecommerce

  • Captivation connects to your Shopify store through Shopify's Storefront API and UCP so the SuperAgent can access product information, imagery, pricing and availability. You then add the Captivation code snippet to your Shopify theme, test the experience privately and publish it when you are ready.

  • Yes. The Shopify integration gives the SuperAgent access to your store's product information and imagery, allowing it to discuss and visually show relevant products during a conversation.

  • Yes. A Sales SuperAgent can help shoppers discover and compare products and can interact with the shopping basket, including adding products for the customer as part of the conversation.

  • A Sales SuperAgent focuses on product discovery, recommendations, comparison and conversion. A Support SuperAgent focuses on helping existing customers with questions about products, orders, deliveries, returns and other support issues.

  • No. The experience runs through the website in a normal web browser. There is no Captivation app or plugin for the shopper to download.

  • A developer is not normally required for the standard Shopify solution. Captivation provides setup instructions and the integration is designed to work with the Shopify store you already have. Specialist or bespoke integrations may require development support.

  • Shopify is the first fully integrated ecommerce platform. Captivation plans support for additional platforms including WooCommerce, Wix and Squarespace, as well as bespoke web environments. Contact the team for the latest roadmap or to discuss a specific platform.

Captivation Inside FAQs

  • Captivation Inside is an embeddable Avatar layer for existing chatbots and AI agents. Your AI generates the response as normal; Captivation adds the voice, lip sync, expressions and contextual gestures and delivers the experience through an Avatar in your front end.

  • Yes. Captivation Inside is designed to be AI and LLM agnostic. You keep your existing AI, prompts, data, agents, tools and workflows and use Captivation as the visual and voice interface.

  • We provide a JavaScript widget for your front end and a connection to the Captivation Platform through the Captivation Bridge. Your LLM output is passed to Captivation, which generates the required voice and Avatar instructions and delivers them to the browser in real time through a WebSocket connection. Full technical details are provided in the developer guide.

  • Captivation can be used by businesses, developers and AI vendors. Developers can use Captivation Inside to add a face and voice to an existing chatbot or AI agent, while businesses can deploy complete SuperAgent solutions for ecommerce, sales, support and other customer-facing applications.

  • The time from receiving the LLM output to the Avatar beginning to speak is typically 200 to 300 milliseconds when stored audio can be reused, and 600 to 800 milliseconds when new audio must be created by a text-to-speech service. Actual performance can vary with the wider integration, network conditions and third-party services.

  • Yes. You can choose from Captivation's growing range of Avatars and voices. Enterprise clients can also commission bespoke Avatars and voices. Captivation can support compatible ElevenLabs voices for clients using their own ElevenLabs account.

  • The technology can work with most voice-agent architectures, including services such as Vapi and LiveKit. Captivation's fully supported commercial offering for this use case is still being developed, so please contact the team to discuss a specific requirement.

Pricing FAQs

  • Captivation Inside is usage-based. Avatar use costs less than one cent per minute of normal conversation, based on approximately 750 characters per minute. Voice Optimisation reduces the cost of repeated speech, giving a typical total cost of around 1 to 2 cents per minute for an Avatar with voice. Full rates depend on the mix of stored and newly generated audio.

  • Stored voice reuses audio that has already been generated rather than making a new request to a text-to-speech service. Captivation's Voice Optimisation technology can reduce typical voice-generation costs by up to 80% without changing the quality of the voice.

  • There is a free trial, followed by usage pricing from around 10p per customer conversation. A conversation covers communications between the customer and SuperAgent during the two hours after the first interaction, up to 15,000 Avatar characters. Further blocks of 15,000 characters count as additional conversations.

  • There is no setup fee for many standard packages, including basic Captivation Inside and SuperAgents for Shopify with self-setup instructions. Enterprise projects involving bespoke Avatars, custom media, specialist integrations or other development may involve an implementation or project fee.

  • Yes. Captivation offers volume, Enterprise and partner pricing for customers with larger usage requirements, multiple deployments or more complex integrations. Please contact the team to discuss your requirements.

  • Rolling monthly contracts can be cancelled at the end of the current monthly period. Discounted annual arrangements may also be available. The applicable terms depend on the product and plan selected.

  • Yes. The Captivation Inside developer trial includes credits for about 30 to 40 minutes of conversation, subject to availability. The Shopify SuperAgent trial includes credits for 50 customer conversations.

Avatar FAQs

  • Yes. Captivation has a growing selection of Avatars, voices and accents so you can choose a combination that suits your audience and brand. New characters and voices are being added regularly.

  • Yes. Bespoke branded Avatars are available for Enterprise clients. These can include custom characters, brand personalities and mascots designed specifically for your organisation.

  • Yes. Captivation offers its own range of voices and can also support compatible ElevenLabs voices through a client's own ElevenLabs account. Bespoke voice options can also be discussed for Enterprise implementations.

  • Bespoke voice creation, including voice cloning for appropriate Enterprise applications, can be supported subject to the required permissions and project requirements.

  • Captivation supports multilingual experiences in more than 30 languages, including the most widely used languages. The exact language options available depend on the product and plan selected.

  • Captivation's current Avatars prioritise expressive communication, gestures, speed and affordability rather than maximum photorealism. Other services may offer more human realism, but usually with higher costs and fewer expressive options. More photorealistic Captivation Avatars are on the development roadmap.