#265 Jeff Lu: How Akool Uses Gen AI to Make Live AI Avatars & Voices

What if you could translate any video into any language—instantly—and make it look like the speaker was really speaking it?

In this episode of Eye on AI, host Craig Smith sits down with Jeff Liu, founder and CEO of Akool, to explore how AI avatars and real-time video translation are eliminating global language barriers. With a background at Apple, Google, and Stanford, Jeff is leading Akool to the frontier of generative AI: cloning faces, voices, and emotions in live video streams.

We dive into the technical architecture behind Akool’s real-time avatars, the role of large language models in translation latency, and what the future looks like when the need to "learn languages" may disappear.

Whether you're a content creator, marketer, technologist, or just curious about what’s next in AI and communication, this episode is a must-listen.

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(00:00) Creating Digital Clones with AI

(01:20) Jeff Liu’s Journey from Big Tech to Startup Founder

(02:54) What Akool Does and Who It's For

(07:11) Inside the Live AI Avatar Suite

(10:32) How Akool Powers Real-Time AI Avatars

(16:05) Solving Language Translation with Avatars

(21:40) Translating YouTube Videos with One Click

(28:36) The Technology Behind Real-Time Translation

(33:22) Competing with Tech Giants Like Google

(36:26) Akool's Vision

(39:36) Avatar Types: Instant, Studio, and Ultra explained

(43:39) Building Emotional Nuance into Voice and Video