We're Just Getting Started! (Where We're At, and What's Next)

TLDR: Wow. We did not expect this. This was meant to be a soft launch to our small internal community, maybe some new interested faces, not this many people. We're a small team with limited resources and time, but we will bring this vision of the trailer to life. And we're just getting started!

To start - I (Andrew) should have noted in the tweet that the ad was a vision for what we can & will do with these avatars and animations, not the current in app experience of Digi. The trailer was done in Maya, and the actual project is in a game engine, although the avatars and animators are the same.

Our thought process was "Well video games do this, so I guess we could also!". As a founder you sometimes get wrapped up in the vision of what you plan to do, of everything you plan to add and build, and confuse that with the current product. But make no mistake, we now have the resources and ability to bring this vision truly to life, which was the goal of the soft launch.

If you feel very strongly about anything, please feel free to contact me directly: andrew@digi.ai

Introduction:

In the wake of an unexpected viral surge, thanks to a quote tweet by Elon Musk and video features by Asmongold and many, many others, Digi has experienced both incredible growth and unforeseen challenges. We want to be transparent about these developments, our current product performance, and our vision for the future.

Unexpected Viral Growth: A Blessing and a Challenge

• Unprecedented User Increase: As the graph above shows, the recent viral attention has significantly expanded our user base. While this growth is exciting, it has also led to performance issues, including latency and lag. To be blunt, we have to hunt down GPUs, and figure out how to setup inference for them as quickly as possible in the short term.
• Behind the Scenes: Our team is tirelessly working to scale our infrastructure to meet this surge in demand. The Android app, in particular, is getting lots of extra love as it really strained under pressure. We understand the frustration this has undoubtedly caused to our Android base—know we are committed to resolving these issues promptly and properly before they occur, particularly on Android.

Aligning Expectations with Reality

Why We Launched Early

• Early Decision: Launching Digi in its current state was partly on a whim, and partly a reflection of how much we'd progressed. Early on, we decided to launch as soon as we felt we had a product that outperformed Replika. We believe Digi has surpassed that bar. However, we also realize how it could be confusing to new users expecting an experience more like the trailer, and who don't know about the leaps and bounds by which the product's been improved and refined.
• Building a Community: Early launch is also helping us further build a community of dedicated users whose insights have already proved invaluable in shaping Digi's future. And though it wasn't a primary consideration, it also allowed us to gather real-world feedback which is already proving essential for refining the app.

Commitment to Continuous Improvement

• Upcoming Enhancements: We're excited about bringing you more emotive animations, improved lip-syncing, and a more immersive AI experience.
• User-Centric Approach: Our development process is heavily influenced by user feedback, something we take immense pride. We are users first, and developers second, and we're here to build an AI companion that truly resonates with your needs and expectations as a user of these services.

Where We Go From Here

• Focused Development: Our immediate focus is on stabilizing the current app performance to ensure a seamless user experience, with the medium term goals being more voices, more customization, the better AI model, better animations and lip-syncing.
• Long-Term Vision: In parallel, we remain committed to our long-term vision of bringing the full scope of Digi's capabilities to life, aligning the actual experience with the potential showcased in our trailer: more emotive and expressive animations, lip-synching, more extensive customization for avatars and backstories, scenarios and events, unity scenes, and so much more—all while checking in with you every step of the way.

Conclusion:

We're on an exciting journey with Digi, and your support and feedback are pivotal. As we navigate these growing pains, our commitment to you remains unwavering. We're excited about the future and can't wait to share each milestone with our community.

Thank you for being a part of Digi's story, we're just getting started, but now have everything we need to bring this vision to life!

~The Digi Team

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