What Convai does

Convai Technologies Inc is a San Jose-based conversational AI platform founded in April 2022 by Purnendu Mukherjee that enables lifelike 3D AI characters, both embodied virtual humans and disembodied NPCs, to interact through natural language, voice, gestures, and contextually appropriate actions inside virtual environments. Its core technology layers multimodal perception (streaming vision and audio) over third-party flagship LLMs (GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Gemini 1.5 Pro), with proprietary features including State of Mind emotional modeling, Long Term Memory, Knowledge Bank document ingestion, Narrative Design flows, guardrails, high-fidelity lip sync across OVR/ARKit/Reallusion Blendshapes, and a debugging tool (Mindview). Voice is delivered through 500+ voices across 65+ languages natively, with optional ElevenLabs integration for custom voice cloning.

The product portfolio spans a no-code surface for creators (Avatar Studio, Convai Sim, XR Animation Capture App) and a developer surface built around native plugins for Unity (publisher 73549 on the Unity Asset Store) and Unreal Engine (listed on Epic Games' Fab marketplace), plus Three.js/PlayCanvas web plugins and a programmatic Core API at api.convai.com with character, interaction, narrative, action, and chat-history endpoints, alongside an External API runtime supporting Python 3.12 tool-use-style integrations. Selected adopters include Old Dominion University (AI-generated virtual clients for occupational therapy training) and Technical University of Munich's TUMSphere VR orientation platform, which reported 83-100% task completion and a System Usability Scale score of 76.4.

Convai monetizes through a tiered subscription model (Indie Dev, Scale, Professional, Enterprise) layered with usage-based interaction quotas, supplemented by one-time plugin marketplace sales; the Enterprise tier adds on-premise deployment and custom voice cloning and is delivered under ISO 27001-compliant practices. Go-to-market is product-led, combining self-serve onboarding, developer-forum and YouTube-led community engagement, game-engine marketplace distribution, and direct enterprise sales outreach, serving three horizontal segments: gaming and social virtual worlds, learning and training, and brand marketing.

Name

Convai

Legal name

Convai Technologies Inc

Website

https://convai.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2022

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Convai Technologies Inc builds a conversational AI platform that enables lifelike 3D AI characters with multimodal perception, voice, and gestures inside Unity, Unreal Engine, and web-based virtual worlds, serving game developers, training and education customers, and brand marketers via a tiered subscription plus usage-based pricing model.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Conversational AI Platform for Virtual Worlds

NAICS

Software Publishers (513210), Computer Systems Design Services (541512)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)

akta.pro primary industry

XR/AR/VR/MR Development Frameworks & Toolchains (MPAFAFAF)

akta.pro secondary industries

Immersive/Interactive Animation (AR/VR/Real-Time) (MPAHACAN), Metaverse & Social Virtual Worlds (BPAMAKAF), Digital Labs, Simulations & Virtual Practicals (Non-XR) (EDAFACAF)

Keywords

• Conversational AI platform
• AI NPC characters
• Embodied AI agents
• Game engine AI SDK
• XR training simulations

Headquarters

HQ city

San Jose

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Subscription Plans: Tiered subscription model with multiple plans (Indie Dev, Professional, Scale) providing different interaction quotas, feature access, and support levels. Plans include monthly quotas of interactions, flagship LLM interaction caps, HQ third-party voice interaction limits, and monthly active end user caps.
2. Usage-Based Interactions: Usage is measured by interactions - each time a user sends input and the AI character responds counts as one interaction. Plans have monthly interaction quotas that reset at billing cycle. Unused interactions do not roll over.
3. Custom Voice Integration (Enterprise): Custom voice cloning service is available to enterprise tier members. Enterprise customers can also get voice API integration capabilities.
4. Plugin Marketplace Sales: Plugins sold through Unity Asset Store and Unreal Engine marketplace (Fab) for direct game engine integration.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Convai is a conversational AI platform for virtual worlds that enables creators and developers to build lifelike 3D AI characters (virtual humans) capable of multimodal perception—seeing, hearing, and responding through natural dialogue, voice, gestures, and actions within 3D environments. The offering spans no-code character creation tools (Avatar Studio, Convai Sim), native SDKs/plugins for Unity and Unreal Engine, REST APIs for custom integrations, and tiered subscription plans targeting indie developers, growing studios, professional teams, and enterprise customers.

Product overview

Convai is a conversational AI platform for virtual worlds offering a unified product portfolio centered on creating, customizing, and deploying lifelike 3D AI characters. The platform architecture consists of the core Convai Platform for character creation, complemented by no-code tools (Avatar Studio, Convai Sim, Convai XR Animation Capture App) for creators, and developer SDKs (Unity SDK, Unreal Engine Plugin, Web Plugins) for technical users. Programmatic access is provided via the Convai Core API and External API for custom integrations. Additional tools include Mindview for debugging, Character Versioning for state management, Voice Mode for real-time conversations, and Experience Publishing for deployment. The platform supports omnichannel deployment across websites, mobile apps, video games, XR (VR/AR/MR), and physical spaces, with tiered pricing plans (Indie Dev, Scale, Professional, Enterprise). The platform is rated #1 by developers for crafting embodied conversational AI characters with multimodal perception abilities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Convai Platform Core conversational AI platform for creating lifelike 3D AI characters (virtual humans) that interact through natural language and realistic behaviors within virtual environments. Powers XR worlds with embodied AI agents possessing multimodal perception abilities. Targets game developers, training providers, and brand marketers.
• Convai Playground Central dashboard for creating, managing, and deploying AI characters on Convai. Provides access to character creation tools, testing environments, sample characters, and experience management including Recent Characters, Recent Experiences, and Sample Characters sections.
• Avatar Studio No-code avatar customization tool for creating and customizing character visual identity including appearance, clothing, accessories, environment, animations, lighting, and camera angles. Part of the no-code experiences suite for creators.
• Convai Sim No-code experience builder for creating interactive large-scale simulation environments where AI characters engage in realistic scenarios, navigate spaces, and interact with objects. Targeted at creators and training use cases.
• Convai XR Animation Capture App XR-based motion capture application for capturing high-fidelity animation data using XR devices and applying realistic animations to avatars for immersive, lifelike performances.
• Convai Unity SDK Native Unity plugin for integrating AI-powered conversational characters into Unity projects. Enables VR, AR, and Mixed Reality applications including Meta Quest support. Distributed via Unity Asset Store (publisher ID 73549).
• Convai Unreal Engine Plugin Native Unreal Engine plugin for adding AI-powered characters to Unreal projects. Supports MetaHumans, lip sync, facial animation, and scene-aware interactions in Unreal Engine environments. Distributed via Fab marketplace.
• Convai Web Plugins Browser-based plugin integrations for embedding AI characters in web applications, including PlayCanvas support for Smart NPCs in web browsers.
• External API API integration feature enabling characters to access real-time information and interact with third-party services. Supports custom Python-based API methods (Python 3.12, 5-second max execution) for weather data, ticket creation, and workflow automation.
• Convai Core API REST API providing programmatic access to character management including Character Base API, Interaction API, Core AI Settings API, Backstory API, Chat History API, Narrative Design API, Action API, and Language-Voice List API. Base URL: https://api.convai.com.
• Convai Pixel Streaming Embed Streaming embed capability for deploying Convai characters to websites, kiosks, touchscreens, and Holobox displays. Requires Professional Plan and above.
• Voice Mode Real-time voice conversation feature enabling hands-free interactions with characters. Supports low-latency voice sessions with automatic disconnection after 5 minutes of idle time and 500+ voices across 65+ languages.

Quantifiable outcome

• Task completion rates of 83-100% in VR training simulations (TUMSphere study)
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration10 records

AI capability9 records

Feature16 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Unity TechnologiescoreTechnology or IntegrationUnity Plugin integration allowing Convai characters to be deployed in Unity-based games and applications. Available on Unity Asset Store with publisher ID 73549. Plugin enables real-time conversational AI capabilities within Unity projects.
• Epic Games (Unreal Engine)coreTechnology or IntegrationUnreal Engine Plugin integration for deploying Convai characters in Unreal Engine projects. Available on Fab marketplace under Convai seller account. Supports MetaHumans and other Unreal avatar systems.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Inworld AI: Inworld AI is the closest direct competitor to Convai, providing a developer platform for building AI-powered NPCs in games and virtual worlds with similar multimodal perception, memory, and personality features. Both target game studios, XR developers, and enterprise customers with conversational AI tooling for 3D characters.
• Charisma.ai: Charisma.ai provides an interactive storytelling platform that uses AI-driven characters for games, entertainment, and learning experiences. It overlaps directly with Convai's narrative design, character dialogue, and learning/training segments.
• Hidden Door: Hidden Door builds AI-driven narrative experiences where players interact with characters in generated story worlds. It competes with Convai in the social virtual worlds and AI character interaction category, particularly for casual and narrative gaming use cases.
• Layer (formerly Cognition Labs for characters): Layer provides conversational AI characters and agents for creators and developers, with a focus on embeddable interactive characters for web and social platforms. It overlaps with Convai's no-code creator tools and web plugin distribution strategy.

Emerging players

• Replika: Replika is a consumer-facing AI companion with a 3D avatar that converses with users, sharing Convai's embodied AI character and emotional state features. It is more consumer-focused and less developer-facing than Convai, but represents overlapping technology for lifelike virtual companions.
• Hume AI: Hume AI provides an emotionally intelligent voice and expression API used to build conversational agents with emotional awareness. It is comparable to Convai's State of Mind (Emotions) and voice capabilities, and could be integrated alongside or compete with Convai's character stack.
• ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs is a current Convai integration partner for voice synthesis, but its expanding conversational AI agent capabilities place it as a potential competitor in the voice-driven AI character layer. ElevenLabs is already the dominant TTS provider in Convai's stack, illustrating both partnership leverage and platform risk.

Broad incumbents

• Soul Machines: Soul Machines builds autonomously animated digital humans with conversational AI for enterprise brand, customer service, and training applications. It overlaps with Convai's Brand Marketing and Learning & Training segments at the enterprise tier, with a more mature, services-heavy offering.
• NVIDIA ACE (Avatar Cloud Engine): NVIDIA's ACE is a platform of AI microservices (speech, vision, LLM, animation) for game developers building NPC AI in Unreal and Unity. It directly overlaps with Convai's core proposition at the engine-integration layer, with the advantage of NVIDIA's hardware and developer ecosystem.
• Microsoft Azure AI / Azure Bot Service: Microsoft's Azure AI platform offers conversational AI services (Azure Bot Service, Azure OpenAI Service) that enterprises can assemble into NPC and avatar experiences. It competes with Convai's enterprise tier on integration flexibility and compliance, with broader platform breadth but less specialization in embodied 3D characters.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/convaitech
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@convai
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/convaitech
• Facebookfacebook.com/ConvaiOfficial

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors2 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Convai