Affectiva

Last updated
Affectiva
Company typePrivate
Industrysoftware, artificial intelligence
Founded Massachusetts, United States (2009 (2009)) [1] [2]
Founders Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D. [2] [3] (CEO & Co-founder)
Rosalind W. Picard, Sc.D. [2] [3] (Co-founder)
FateAcquired by SmartEye
Headquarters
Boston, Massachusetts
,
United States [4] [5]
Number of locations
 Boston, Massachusetts and Cairo, Egypt
ProductsAffectiva Automotive AI, [6] Affectiva Media Analytics [7]
Services Emotion AI [8]
Total equity (venture capital) $53 million [9]
Number of employees
100-150 [10]
Website affectiva.com

Affectiva is a software development company that created artificial intelligence. In 2021, the company was acquired by SmartEye. The company claimed its AI understood human emotions, cognitive states, activities and the objects people use, by analyzing facial and vocal expressions. [11] The offshoot of MIT Media Lab, [12] Affectiva created a new technological category of Artificial Emotional Intelligence, namely, Emotion AI. [13]

Contents

History

Affectiva was co-founded by Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D., who became chief executive officer as of May 25, 2016, [14] and Rosalind W. Picard, Sc.D., who worked as chairman and Chief Scientist until 2013. Both of Affectiva's early products grew out of collaborative research at the MIT's Media Lab to help people on the autism spectrum. [15]

Affectiva was acquired for a mostly-stock deal of $73.5m by Swedish SmartEye, a former competitor. [16]

Technology

The company has expanded its Emotion AI technology to detect more than facial expressions, reactions and emotions. Affectiva's software detects complex and nuanced emotions, cognitive states, such as drowsiness and distraction, certain activities and the objects people use. It does that by analyzing the human face, vocal intonations and body posture.

Affectiva's AI is built with deep learning, computer vision, and large amounts of data that has been collected in real-world scenarios. [17] The AI uses an optical sensor like a webcam or smartphone camera to identify a human face in real-time. [17] Then, computer vision algorithms identify key features on the face, which are analyzed by deep learning algorithms to classify facial expressions. These facial expressions are then mapped back to emotions. One journal paper found the Affectiva iMotions Facial Expression Analysis Software results are comparable to results using facial Electromyography. [18] Affectiva also uses computer vision to detect objects like a cellphone [19] and car seat, [20] as well as body key points, which track body joints to determine movement and location. [21]

Affectiva has collected massive amounts of data that are used to train and test the company's deep learning algorithms, and provide insight into human emotional reactions and engagement. The company has analyzed more than 10 million face videos from 90 countries, making it one of the largest data repositories of its kind. [22] Affectiva has also collected more than 19,000 hours of automotive in-cabin data from 4,000 unique individuals. [23] This automotive data is used to adapt its algorithms to varying camera angles, lighting and other environmental conditions in a vehicle.

Applications

Affectiva's AI had many applications, but the company's primary focus is on Media Analytics. [24] Other uses of Affectiva's AI includes applications in automotive, [25] healthcare [26] [27] and mental health, [28] robotics, [29] conversational interfaces, [30] education, [31] [32] gaming, [33] [34] and more.

Media Analytics

Affectiva's technology was first deployed in media analytics, for market research purposes. The company had since then tested more than 53,000 ads in 90 countries. [35] Brands, advertising agencies and insights firms used the company's Emotion AI to measure the unfiltered and unbiased emotional responses consumers have when viewing video ads and movie trailers. [36] These insights helped improve brand and media content, and predict key metrics in advertising such as sales lift, purchase intent and virality. [37] [28] Affectiva's technology was also used in qualitative research. [38]

Affectiva had partnered with leading insights firms such as Kantar, LRW, Added Value and Unruly. [39] [40] Through these collaborations, 28 percent of the Fortune Global 500 companies, and 70 percent of the world's largest advertisers, used Affectiva's Emotion AI. [35]

On September 5, 2019, Affectiva announced the appointment of Graham Page, a seasoned Kantar executive, as Global Managing Director of Media Analytics to expand on the company's existing footprint in the media analytics space. [41]

Automotive

On March 21, 2018, Affectiva launched Affectiva Automotive AI, the first multi-modal in-cabin sensing solution[ buzzword ] to understand what is happening with people in a vehicle. [25] It used cameras in the car to measure in real time, the state of the driver, the state of the occupants and the state of the vehicle interior (i.e. cabin). This insight helped car manufacturers, fleet management companies and rideshare providers improve road safety and build better driver monitoring systems, by understanding dangerous driver behavior such as drowsiness, distraction and anger. [42] It was also used to create more comfortable and enjoyable transportation experiences, by understanding how passengers react to the environment, such as content they can consume in the back of the car. [24]

In addition to understanding driver and occupant emotional and cognitive states, Affectiva Automotive AI could also detect contextual cabin information such as the number of passengers, where they are sitting and if an object is present.

Affectiva worked with a number of leading car manufacturers and transportation technology companies, including Aptiv, [43] Cerence, [44] Hyundai Kia, [45] Faurecia, [46] Porsche, [47] BMW, [48] GreenRoad Technologies, [49] and Veoneer. [50]  

Acquisition

In June 2021 Smart Eye acquired Affectiva. [51]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Affective computing</span> Area of research in computer science aiming to understand the emotional state of users

Affective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer science, psychology, and cognitive science. While some core ideas in the field may be traced as far back as to early philosophical inquiries into emotion, the more modern branch of computer science originated with Rosalind Picard's 1995 paper on affective computing and her book Affective Computing published by MIT Press. One of the motivations for the research is the ability to give machines emotional intelligence, including to simulate empathy. The machine should interpret the emotional state of humans and adapt its behavior to them, giving an appropriate response to those emotions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Facial recognition system</span> Technology capable of matching a face from an image against a database of faces

A facial recognition system is a technology potentially capable of matching a human face from a digital image or a video frame against a database of faces. Such a system is typically employed to authenticate users through ID verification services, and works by pinpointing and measuring facial features from a given image.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Face detection</span> Identification of human faces in images

Face detection is a computer technology being used in a variety of applications that identifies human faces in digital images. Face detection also refers to the psychological process by which humans locate and attend to faces in a visual scene.

Affective science is the scientific study of emotion or affect. This includes the study of emotion elicitation, emotional experience and the recognition of emotions in others. Of particular relevance are the nature of feeling, mood, emotionally-driven behaviour, decision-making, attention and self-regulation, as well as the underlying physiology and neuroscience of the emotions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosalind Picard</span> American computer scientist

Rosalind Wright Picard is an American scholar and inventor who is Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT, founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab, and co-founder of the startups Affectiva and Empatica.

Peter Robinson is Professor Emeritus of Computer Technology at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in England, where he works in the Rainbow Group on computer graphics and interaction. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College and lives in Cambridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SoundHound</span> American music and speech recognition company

SoundHound AI, Inc. is a voice artificial intelligence (AI) company founded in 2005. It is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. SoundHound provides a voice AI platform that enables businesses to offer customized conversational experiences to consumers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smart Eye</span> Swedish artificial intelligence company

Smart Eye AB, is a Swedish artificial intelligence (AI) company founded in 1999 and headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden. Smart Eye develops Human Insight AI, technology that understands, supports and predicts human behavior in complex environments. Smart Eye develops and deploys several core technologies that help gain insights from subtle and nuanced changes in human behavior, reactions and expressions. These technologies include head tracking, eye tracking, facial expression analysis and Emotion AI, activity and object detection, and multimodal sensor data analysis. 

IHS Markit Ltd was an information services provider that completed a merger with S&P Global in 2022. Headquartered in London, it was formed in 2016 with the merger of IHS Inc. and Markit Ltd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pepper (robot)</span> Model of humanoid robot

Pepper is a semi-humanoid robot manufactured by SoftBank Robotics, designed with the ability to read emotions. It was introduced in Japan in June 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rana el Kaliouby</span> Egyptian-American computer scientist and entrepreneur

Rana el Kaliouby is an Egyptian-American computer scientist. She is the co-founder, with Rosalind Picard, and CEO of Affectiva.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emospark</span> Artificial intelligence console

EmoSpark is an artificial intelligence console created in London, United Kingdom by Patrick Levy-Rosenthal. The device uses facial recognition and language analysis to evaluate human emotion and convey responsive content according to the emotion. The console measures 90 mm x 90 mm x 90 mm and is cube shaped. It operates on an "Emotional Processing Unit", an emotion chip developed by Emoshape Inc. that enables the system to create emotional profile graphs of its surroundings. The emotional processing unit is a patent pending technology that is said to create synthesised emotional responses in machines. EmoSpark was funded through an Indiegogo campaign which aimed to raise $200,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dynatrace</span> American technology company

Dynatrace, Inc. is a global technology company that provides a software observability platform based on artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. Dynatrace technologies are used to monitor, analyze, and optimize application performance, software development and security practices, IT infrastructure, and user experience for businesses and government agencies throughout the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jocelyn Scheirer</span> American entrepreneur, scientist, and artist

Jocelyn Scheirer is an American entrepreneur, scientist, and artist who works in wearable technology and affective computing.

Facial coding is the process of measuring human emotions through facial expressions. Emotions can be detected by computer algorithms for automatic emotion recognition that record facial expressions via webcam. This can be applied to better understanding of people’s reactions to visual stimuli.

Emotion recognition is the process of identifying human emotion. People vary widely in their accuracy at recognizing the emotions of others. Use of technology to help people with emotion recognition is a relatively nascent research area. Generally, the technology works best if it uses multiple modalities in context. To date, the most work has been conducted on automating the recognition of facial expressions from video, spoken expressions from audio, written expressions from text, and physiology as measured by wearables.

Catalin Voss is a German-born inventor and entrepreneur. Voss is considered a pioneer in applying artificial intelligence and machine learning for societal impact in areas such as childhood literacy, Autism, financial inclusion in emerging economies, and the criminal justice system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modar Alaoui</span> Moroccan-American serial entrepreneur

Modar Alaoui is a Moroccan-American serial tech entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, California in the United States. Alaoui is the founder and CEO of Eyeris Technologies, Inc., an artificial intelligence software company for automotive in-cabin sensing AI and sensor fusion technologies inside autonomous vehicles (AV) and highly automated vehicles (HAV).

Artificial empathy or computational empathy is the development of AI systems—such as companion robots or virtual agents—that can detect emotions and respond to them in an empathic way.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Merative</span> U.S. healthcare company

Merative L.P., formerly IBM Watson Health, is an American medical technology company that provides products and services that help clients facilitate medical research, clinical research, real world evidence, and healthcare services, through the use of artificial intelligence, data analytics, cloud computing, and other advanced information technology. Merative is owned by Francisco Partners, an American private equity firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. In 2022, IBM divested and spun-off their Watson Health division into Merative. As of 2023, it remains a standalone company headquartered in Ann Arbor with innovation centers in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Chennai.

References

  1. ↑ Bosker, Bianca (December 24, 2012). "Affectiva's Emotion Recognition Tech: When Machines Know What You're Feeling". The Huffington Post . Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 Kerstetter, Jim (February 2, 2013). "Building better Super Bowl ads by watching you watch them". CNET . Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  3. 1 2 "Meet Our Team". Affectiva. Archived from the original on February 3, 2013. Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  4. ↑ "Contact us". Affectiva. Archived from the original on January 17, 2013. Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  5. ↑ Girard, Kim (January 29, 2013). "Creating the Perfect Super Bowl Ad". Forbes . Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  6. ↑ "Automotive AI". Affectiva. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  7. ↑ "Media Analytics". Affectiva. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  8. ↑ "Emotion AI". Forbes. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  9. ↑ Affectiva Raises $26 Million to Fast-Track Human Perception AI in Automotive and Conversational Interfaces BusinessWire, April 11, 2019, Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  10. ↑ Company profile, Glassdoor.com, February 13, 2015, Retrieved May 17, 2017
  11. ↑ "New Affectiva cloud API helps machines understand emotions in human speech". TechCrunch. 13 September 2017. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
  12. ↑ Khatchadourian, Raffi. "We Know How You Feel". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
  13. ↑ Press, Gil. "Emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) Leaders: Rana el Kaliouby, Affectiva". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
  14. ↑ Affectiva. "Emotion AI Leader Affectiva Announces $14 Million in Growth Capital". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2020-12-17.
  15. ↑ Press, Gil. "Emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) Leaders: Rana el Kaliouby, Affectiva". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-12-17.
  16. ↑ Korosec, Kirsten (2021-05-25). "Emotion-detection software startup Affectiva acquired for $73.5M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-08-22.
  17. 1 2 "How emotion-tracking A.I. will change computing as we know it". www.digitaltrends.com. 18 April 2019. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  18. ↑ Kulke, Louisa; Feyerabend, Dennis; Schacht, Annekathrin (2020). "A Comparison of the Affectiva iMotions Facial Expression Analysis Software With EMG for Identifying Facial Expressions of Emotion". Frontiers in Psychology. 11: 329. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00329 . ISSN   1664-1078. PMC   7058682 . PMID   32184749.
  19. ↑ "Rana el Kaliouby on LinkedIn: #automotive #technology #ai". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  20. ↑ "Rana el Kaliouby on LinkedIn: #automotive #technology #ai". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  21. ↑ "Affectiva Automotive AI: In-Cabin Sensing that transforms road safety and the mobility experience". Youtube. 10 September 2020.
  22. ↑ "Research Shows Advertising is Having a More Emotional Impact on Consumers, But Not All Advertisers Are Using Emotions Effectively". www.businesswire.com. 2020-10-27. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  23. ↑ Affectiva. "Affectiva Automotive AI". go.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  24. 1 2 Team, Insights. "Forbes Insights: Designing AI That Knows How You Feel". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  25. 1 2 "Affectiva Launches Multi-Modal Automotive In-Cabin AI to Improve Road Safety and Accelerate Autonomy". www.businesswire.com. 2018-03-21. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  26. ↑ McManus, Ashley. "SDK on the Spot: FacePrint Emotion Recognition Program Detects Early Parkinson's Disease Symptoms". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  27. ↑ "AI Reads Human Emotions. Should it?". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  28. 1 2 "How emotion-tracking A.I. will change computing as we know it". Digital Trends. 2019-04-18. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  29. ↑ "Softbank Robotics enhances Pepper the robot's emotional intelligence". VentureBeat. 2018-08-28. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  30. ↑ McManus, Ashley. "Emotion AI for Chat Bots: The Next Wave of Artificial Intelligence". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  31. ↑ "Emotion-Gauging Startup's Learning Apps See if You're Bored". www.digitaltrends.com. 13 December 2016. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  32. ↑ Kaliouby, Rana el (2020-06-15). "Emotionally aware technology could help us beat Zoom fatigue". Fast Company. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  33. ↑ Murnane, Kevin. "Gaming: 'Nevermind' Reads Your Mind And Adapts To Your Emotions". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  34. ↑ "Affectiva Releases Emotion Artificial Intelligence Plug-In for Unity". www.businesswire.com. 2016-10-17. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  35. 1 2 "Research Shows Advertising is Having a More Emotional Impact on Consumers, But Not All Advertisers Are Using Emotions Effectively". www.businesswire.com. 2020-10-27. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  36. ↑ Affectiva. "Movie Trailers and Emotion: The Full Story". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  37. ↑ Affectiva. "Affectiva Media Analytics". go.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  38. ↑ Affectiva. "The Emotion Behind Your Conversation: Transforming the Online Qual Experience". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  39. ↑ Affectiva. "Download: Kantar Webinar on Emotions in Advertising". go.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  40. ↑ McManus, Ashley. "Balancing Long-Term Brand Effects and Short-Term Activation with Unruly". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  41. ↑ "Affectiva Appoints Graham Page as New Global Managing Director of Media Analytics". www.businesswire.com. 2019-09-05. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  42. ↑ Quain, John R. (2019-03-28). "Eyes on the Road! (Your Car Is Watching) (Published 2019)". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  43. ↑ PLC, Aptiv. "Aptiv Partners with Affectiva to Enable the Next Generation Vehicle Experience". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  44. ↑ "Affectiva and Nuance to Bring Emotional Intelligence to AI-Powered Automotive Assistants". Nuance Communications. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  45. ↑ America, Kia Motors. "Kia looks to post-autonomous driving era at CES 2019". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  46. ↑ "Faurecia/Accenture team on Connected Car Lab". www.just-auto.com. 2019-06-07. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  47. ↑ McManus, Ashley. "Affectiva Joins Startup Autobahn for Emotion AI Vehicles". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  48. ↑ McManus, Ashley. "BMW: How In-Cabin Sensing Helps Build the Ultimate In-Vehicle Experience". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  49. ↑ "GreenRoad Technologies and Affectiva Partner to Bring Real-Time Driver Impairment Monitoring to the Fleet Management Market". www.businesswire.com. 2018-09-06. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  50. ↑ "CES 2019". Veoneer. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  51. ↑ "Smart Eye Completes Acquisition of Affectiva". www.businesswire.com. 2021-06-23. Retrieved 2021-06-29.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.