Soul Machines

<h2>Product Positioning</h2> <p>Soul Machines is a pioneer of the "digital workforce / digital human" category, with the core message "We Humanize AI." Using its patented Experiential AI™ and Digital Brain™ technologies, it builds autonomous AI agents with emotional intelligence, letting users talk to AI face-to-face rather than stare at a chat box. Its flagship product, Digital Workforce™, targets enterprises, deploying lifelike digital workers in high-ROI roles such as customer service, HR, sales, and healthcare, with intelligent orchestration of LLMs, workflows, and private data.</p> <h2>Core Features</h2> <ul> <li><b>Digital Workforce™</b>: enterprise-grade digital worker platform with out-of-the-box agent templates for customer service, HR benefits, operations optimization, and clinical trial enrollment.</li> <li><b>Soul Machines Studio</b>: a no-code creation sandbox for customizing appearance, voice, personality, and behavior; LLM-agnostic (supports GPT, Gemini, and more).</li> <li><b>Workforce Connect™</b>: integrates with enterprise workflows like ServiceNow and Zapier, embedding digital workers into existing business processes.</li> <li><b>Experiential AI™ / Digital Brain™</b>: patented emotion engine and "digital brain" driving real-time facial animation, gestures, eye contact, and emotional expression, with conversation lengths more than 3x those of typical chatbots.</li> <li><b>Full developer ecosystem</b>: Web SDK, Skills API, Insights API, Interactions API, plus official documentation and Academy tutorials, supporting 13–20+ languages.</li> </ul> <h2>Pricing (historical, pre-administration)</h2> <p>Billing was based on "conversation minutes + number of agents": the Studio free tier was free forever; Basic started at $12.99/month, Plus was $99/month, and Pro was $2,700/month; enterprise Workforce Connect was $40,000/year and an Enterprise License about $100,000/year. Digital Workforce offered a 7-day free trial. Note: because of the bankruptcy administration, these plans can no longer be purchased; they are recorded for historical reference only.</p> <h2>Company Background</h2> <p>Founded in 2016 in Auckland, New Zealand by Dr. Mark Sagar, a two-time Academy Award winner for Scientific and Technical Achievement, and serial entrepreneur Greg Cross, the company raised roughly $118M–$135M in total (from SoftBank, Temasek, Salesforce Ventures, Horizons Ventures, and 11 investors in all). It worked with the WHO, Nestlé, Microsoft Azure, and ServiceNow, with customers including Autodesk, Mercedes-Benz, ANZ, and Air New Zealand, and at its peak employed more than 250 people worldwide.</p> <h2>Risk Notice</h2> <p><b>Soul Machines Limited entered voluntary bankruptcy administration on February 5, 2026</b>. New Zealand KPMG has taken over and is selling the business and assets; services have been fully discontinued, so it is not recommended as a currently purchasable, active tool. The industry consensus on the failure: the patented technology was real but commercialization revenue fell short, and the 2023 generative AI wave commoditized conversational capability through general-purpose LLMs, reducing the company to "a face on top of ChatGPT." If you still care about digital human technology, evaluate alternatives such as UneeQ, D-ID, HeyGen, and Hume AI. The tool retains research value as a "historical benchmark," and should be reassessed if KPMG completes the asset sale and a new owner relaunches the service.</p>