Wombo, the makers of viral AI-generated art app Dream by Wombo, is back with another new AI-powered app called Wombo Me. The new AI avatar app from the Canadian startup lets you turn a single selfie into multiple lifelike avatars.
Although there are several popular AI avatar apps already on the market, like Lensa AI, Wombo wants to give users a more streamlined experience when generating lifelike avatars. Unlike other similar apps that require you to submit numerous selfies and wait some time before getting your images, Wombo Me only requires one selfie and can generate images almost instantly, Wombo CEO Ben-Zion Benkhin told TechCrunch in an interview.
Wombo Me is meant to be more fun, as opposed to functional. The app’s description notes that you can share the avatars with your friends and across social media, and maybe even use them on platforms like LinkedIn and Tinder to capture both your professionalism and personality.
The app lets you do things like try on the persona of celebrities, movie characters or superheroes with a simple tap. You can also try new hair colors, styles or makeup trends, among other things. Plus, you can create gender-swapped images of yourself or reimagine yourself as an enchanted character.
“As soon as you install it, the first thing you see is a selfie screen, so it asks you to just provide a single image and then as soon as you press continue, you see 10 images of you in unique alternate realities,” Wombo’s head of AI Parshant Loungani told TechCrunch. “And you can swipe right or swipe left in a Tinder-like experience to like it and save it. We plan on using that feedback to improve the user’s identity and the pictures that we generate to basically understand their preference and update it the next time.”
Once you’re done swiping through the set of images provided, you have the choice to browse through a catalog or five to 10 different packs of avatars that include images of yourself in LinkedIn-like headshots, Instagrammable pictures, enchanted characters, cartoon characters, meme characters and more. Some avatar packs are free, while others cost $2.99, $3.99, $4.99 or $7.99.
Benkhin says Wombo Me provides high-quality images that are comparable to, or even better than, what’s available on the market right now. Plus, he believes that since the output is produced from just a single image almost instantaneously, Wombo Me provides both ease of use and accessibility for users.
He also thinks that while other similar apps have a short shelf life, the company sees a more long-term and ambitious plan for Wombo Me, where the ability to generate content of a user from a single selfie gets tied into a deeper platform experience. For instance, if an entire group of friends is on the app and it has learned what each person looks like, it has the potential to generate imagery of them together.
“There’s a social aspect of it,” Benkhin said. “The AI has learned what each of us look like and can generate imagery of us. Now you can start automatically generating content for social where multiple people are doing something interesting. So we see the accessibility and single selfie advantage as a first step. The long-term of the product is where all the other differentiation is going to happen.”
Loungani noted that in the future, users of the app could be asked to provide a 10- to 20-second voice clip along with video of them moving their head in a certain way, in order to then create a multimodal identity of theirs. The identity could then be used to generate content like dancing videos or interactions with friends.
Benkhin believes that although AI already plays a huge role in consumer apps like Instagram and TikTok in terms of curating feeds, the technology will increasingly be used for media creation in the future.
“We think the next stage of this is AI for media creation, and not just curation,” Benkhin said. “And increasingly, users are going to be creating AI-generated media that they’re posting for socials. And also the platforms themselves are going to be creating personalized content for users using AI. And we think that’s the next era on social media. We think it’s a huge opportunity, and with every product and feature we make, we’re taking a step in that direction.”
Wombo Me is available worldwide on both iOS and Android starting today.
The new app has some big shoes to fill, as its predecessor Dream by Wombo was a viral success and named Google’s “Best App” in the United States last year. The app has been downloaded more than 47 million times and seen $4.3 million in gross revenue, according to data provided to TechCrunch by mobile intelligence firm, data.ai. The app is currently ranked No. 30 for downloads in Graphics & Design on the U.S. App Store.
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